Secrets
by Maeinli
Summary: Gakuto hates his father, but why is that? warning: no actual abuse, but it is implied
1. Friends Don't Keep Secrets

**Disclaimer: **come now, we all know this

Friends Don't Keep Secrets 

It'd been a good practice today, he and Yuushi had gotten their combination down almost perfect, even Atobe had complimented them on it, and that meant something for certain, cause it always seemed that Atobe was rarely pleased. He was chattering away with Jirou while heading back to the changing rooms with the rest of the team. Everything was going well today, until his phone went off while he was in the middle of tying his shoes, recognizing the ring tone, he quickly picked it up, "Hello?"....Yeah...I don't think....I know it's been a few days...." Sighing he put his fingertips to the bridge between his nose, "Yeah, yeah I'll take you home today." He clicked the phone shut quickly, pulling on his other shoe, tying them quickly and throwing his pack over one shoulder.

Shishido sat on the bench next to Gakuto finishing tying up his hair after most of it fell out on its bindings during practice. Listening out of the corner of his ear he overheard Gakuto's part of the rushed conversation. He had recognized the ring tone as the one used for Gakuto's brother, Haru. Grabbing his stuff he followed the red head out the door. "So what'd Haru want?"

"Hmm?" Gakuto was a bit distracted so when Shishido followed him outside he was mildly surprised, "Ah, he just wants me to pick him up from school today." And take him home....he father hadn't shown up for the past few days, and Haru wanted to sleep in his own bed, who could blame him? So Gakuto promised he'd take him home today, and that he wouldn't have to sleep with a friend or sleep in Gakuto's bedroom. With luck, maybe their father wouldn't show up for the rest of the week and they could sleep easy.

"Pick him up? Isn't he getting old enough to walk home himself?" Shishido raised an eye as he followed him to the elementary section of Hyotei. "He must be what 9 now?"

hrugging uncomfortably, Gakuto didn't know how to answer that, "Well...yeah but." Luckily Haru chose that moment to come out, seeing Gakuto right away he ran over, trying to keep his pack on his shoulders, it bounced and jiggled precariously. Gakuto smiled and waved at his little brother, glad for the distraction.

"Ready to go home?" He asked, Haru nodded vigorously before looking at Shishido curiously. He was much quieter than his older brother, but had the same red hair, though his was cut short, much like Jirou's, his hair curly rather than straight like Gakuto's.

"Hey kid!" Shishido nodded to Haru shoving his hands into his pocket. "Long time no see. Still not considering joining the tennis club once you get into middle school?" He had gotten to know the younger Mukahi due to the fact that Gakuto would always bring him along to hang out when Haru wasn't over at another friends house. So when the three of them got into Tennis it only made sense for them to teach Haru too. Still he was never as enthusiastic over the sport as the older boys and preferred to just play it on the side.

"Maybe," Haru shrugged back as answer, "Hyoutei's....kinda mean." Gakuto laughed at that, always the honest one, that Haru.

"Can't deny that little bro." He ruffled the the little one's hair, causing it to become much messier than it already was, if that was even possible the smaller boy shook his head and frowned up at his older brother. Haru was good, but he didn't seem to have the drive that Shishido and Gakuto had when it came to the sport, oh well, to each their own.

Then he asked the question that Gakuto had hoped he would keep to himself, "Dad home today?" he asked, big eyes staring up at his older brother. Wincing, Gakuto's eyes flickered from Shishido and back to Haru, shaking his head, his smile a little more forced.

"Not today." Hopefully....

"Is your dad ever home?" Shishido asked with a raised eyebrow at the two red-heads. Every time their dad was brought into a conversation he was always out of the house. Then thinking about it he made a realization. "You know I don't think I've ever met your dad. You'd think after all these years I'd have at least met him at least once." That's because you don't want to, Gakuto thought to himself, scuffing one foot against the ground. "He...works alot." "Must work the strangest hours then. Cuz I know I've been over to... Hey I don't think I've ever been over to your place." Shishido racked his brain for a time that he had visited the Mukahi house. Year after year the closest he could recall being to the house was the front porch waiting for Gakuto to grab some stuff only for them to leave again. All the sleepovers, every time they'd hang out. It was always at his or Jirou's house when they were younger. Then at Atobe's place once they got into Middle school.

"S-sure you have." That was a lie and they both knew it, Gakuto didn't let him go to his house, he didn't let anyone, and he rarely let Haru. His dad....wasn't the nicest person. When he was drunk or in a bad mood, it was best just not to go home. The house was a wreck right now actually, cigarette butts and beer bottles everywhere. He hadn't had time to clean it up today, maybe he could get Haru to go play outside for a while, while he worked on getting the place in order.

Haru tugged at the end of his sleeve and he looked down, "Yeah, yeah Haru, we'll go home." He grabbed his hand and started heading in that direction, hoping beyond hope that Shishido wouldn't decide to follow.

He turned with the brothers as they started to walk home."No I don't think I have been to your house." He responded as he followed them across campus to the main gate. "Maybe if was Jirou that visited." Once they reached the main gates he continued to follow the two boys even though his house was technically in the opposite direction.

Gakuto closed his eyes for a moment, no, please no. "It's not much to brag about," he said, in full honesty. Hyoutei may have been a place for money, but his home wasn't. It was only because their father didn't want them to go to some second rate school that they were in the Hyoutei system to begin with. Haru, sensing the tension his brother was feeling gave him a worried look that Gakuto didn't return out of full stubbornness. "Isn't your house over there?" was the unneeded question that he was hoping would get rid of the other boy.

"Huh?" He looked at the younger boy. "Yah. But I was going over to the park to practice some more. And the park this way has better tennis courts." It he didn't know any better he would have thought that the boy was trying to get rid of him. But that wouldn't be.

Haru nodded in response to that, hoping that'd get his older brother to stop worrying, "What are we having for dinner tonight?" he asked, unaware that that question probably made it worse, since...well, weren't the parents suppose to figure that out? Not the Jr. High kid.

Wincing, hoping that Shishido didn't catch onto that, Gakuto ruffled the other's hair again. "We'll see." He turned towards Shishido slightly, "So I guess I'll see you tomorrow?"

"I don't have to practice right away. The courts are probably still crowded anyway. I want to see you house." He shifted his bag up his shoulders again. "Would your mom be home now?"

Biting the inside of his lip, Gakuto's eyes searched the ground worriedly, "Probably not." She never was. And if she was that meant she was drunk, and that's not the house he wanted Shishido to see. "And you don't want to see my house...." Why couldn't the other boy leave well enough alone? Whether or not Shishido knew it, he was prying where he shouldn't be.

"Yah I do. Com'mon. You've seen my house. And you've seen the mess that's my brother's room. You're house can't be worse than that." Shishido was no neat freak but just looking into his older brother's room made even him was to clean. The place was a pig sty if any room was. All of his music stuff lay in one corner. He had piles of clothes and book and papers, and and papers with books and books with clothes. scattered through out his room. There was no place for for anyone to step and the last time Shishido had looked in there he had counted 4 bowls and 10 cups scattered throughout the room.

"Just let it go, Ryou! We can go do something else" Gakuto was suddenly on the offense, the thought of letting Shishido into his house was a terrible one that put him on the edge. Haru winced at the loud sound of the other's voice, sensing his desperation to not let Shishido follow them home, but he didn't say anything on the matter.

"Hey what's your problem?" He was slightly taken aback by Gakuto's attitude. "I just want to see your house. What's the big deal?"

"Well....why do you want to see so badly?" Gakuto shot back, he didn't know why Shishido was so interested in seeing his house, it wasn't that exciting...or well kept, or....anything. It was just a place he and Haru would sleep at night...and sometimes not even that.

"Because you're making such a big deal over me not seeing it. I thought we were friends. You've certainly been over to my house enough times. Is there something wrong with me wondering what your's was like." He stared at the other boy in question. Gakuto was trying to avoid something. Shishido had opened his eyes and realized a few months ago that there was something up with the Mukahi household just by the amount of time Gakuto didn't spend at it. He was always over someone else's house. Still Shishido had never pried and Gakuto had never offered any explanation. Though now he was wondering if maybe he should have asked sooner.

He had no answer to that, Gakuto realized with a jolt. If his was a normal family, it wouldn't have been a big deal, he wouldn't have found anything wrong with it. If his family was normal...yeah, that was the issue. He honestly had no idea why his parents thought they could have kids in the first place, maybe he and his siblings were some sort of last chance to keep the marriage together, a last ditch effort that failed miserably as each realized they couldn't take care of the said kids. He didn't know how he'd even begin to explain to Shishido, should the other see his wreck of a house, and finally visible proof as to why Gakuto's home life was such a disaster.

They continued walking down the street in silence. Shishido still staring at the acrobat waiting for a response. After a few moments he realized that he wouldn't be getting one. Watching Gakuto's eyes shift nervously back and fourth along the pavement ahead Shishido began to worry. A quiet Gakuto was not normal. "Hey. Are you alright? Nothings wrong, right?"

Wrong?...everything was wrong. He had to figure out how to keep Shishido out of his house. "Everything's fine." Gakuto said stiffly, though it was most certainly a lie. Haru's eyes flickered back between the friends, watching this play out, worrying. Gakuto's stance was getting more and more uncomfortable as they got closer to their house.

"Liar." He would have used some stronger words but realized that Haru was still walking alongside them. "Something _is_ wrong." He stopped walking and reached out to stop Gakuto too. "What is is Gakuto? You know you can tell me. We've been friends for seven years now. That should mean something."

"It does..." Just not enough to actually tell you. Gakuto slid his arm out of the other's reach, not hard enough to be snappish, but enough to still feel like he was keeping something from Shishido. In the end he settled with a simple, "My...house isn't the best place to live." even though he knew that Shishido probably already knew that but Gakuto really didn't want to tell him.

"What's wrong?" Shishido repeated. The worry growing inside of him. He knew, at least generally, where Gakuto lived. So it wasn't that he lived in a bad part of town. No it wasn't the neighborhood that his friend was talking about. So that could only mean that he was talking about the people... "It's not you're parents... they don't..." He trailed off not knowing where he was going. Or more appropriately knowing but not wanting to admit it. Still the signs were there. Gakuto's avoidance toward anything to do with his family. His unwillingness to go home... ever. Shishido's eyes widened as he started pulling the pieces together. The pieces that he used to be to young to understand, then blind to later on.

His eyes started to widen at the slow realization that Shishido was having. Nonononono, this couldn't be happening, not here, not now. His grip on Haru's hand tightened to an almost uncomfortable pressure, until Haru almost squeaked. Realizing this he let go quickly, looking for all intents and purposes that he was about to run.

Shishido watched Gakuto's panicked actions eyes still wide at the thoughts he had. But the small noise Haru made jolted him into action. Dropping his bag he reached out to prevent his friend from bolting. "Gaktuo wait! If somethings really wrong tell me. I'll help. Or... or tell Jirou... or someone. We're your friends." He'd kept this a secret for so long, and so far it had been successful, until now. The thought of telling anyone, even his friends was such a frightening one that he just shook his head frantically, trying to pull out of the other's grip, but not quite succeeding, "I-I can't!" he cried out desperately.

"Gakuto!" Shishido tightened his grip as he felt the other boy try to pull away. Suddenly the sound of a car behind him made him realize that they will still outside on a random sidewalk. Looking around he realized that they were only a block away from the park that he was planning on practicing at. The park would be a lot more secluded than where they were right now. And he hoped that Gakuto would open up more if they were less in public. Moving over to pick up his stuff he started to drag the shorter boy towards the park hoping Haru would follow.

Dragging his heels, Gakuto only succeeded in delaying being dragged off to...wherever, his pleas becoming a little more frantic, "Shishido! Let go!" but the other had a slight height advantage over him, making it harder to pull away. Before he knew it the three of them where at the park and Shishido had shoved him down to sit on the ground, Gakuto's eyes turned away from his friend.

"Gakuto! Talk." Shishido stared down at the other boy. His muscles still tense just in case he tried to make a break for it. "Com'mon. You've really got me worried." He admitted quietly. Not really knowing what else to do he reached into his pocket. "If you don't want to talk to me I'll call Jirou." Jirou always had been the more emotional one out of the three of them... that is to say he showed a larger range of emotions. For the other two, happy and angry were pretty much all most people got out of them.

"N-no!" Panicked, Gakuto reached up to snatch the phone away from Shishido, but the other got it out of his reach just in time and all Gakuto caught was empty air. He looked to Haru for help, but the other boy just shrugged helplessly, an angry Shishido wasn't a good one to deal with, Haru knew that. He gave his younger brother a look and Haru nodded, going over to the playground part of the park, quietly.

Still holding his cell phone out of reach Shishido watched the silent communication between brothers. Seeing Haru walk over to another area of the park he put is arm down. Focusing once more on Gakuto he looked over him worried again. "Will you talk or should I call?"

Hands in his lap, Gakuto kept his eyes hidden by his hair, a frown the only thing visible on his face, still silent, but only for a moment. "My Dad's.....not nice." he said vaguely, unsure how to start this conversation. How do you tell your friend of seven years that your home-life was trash? That sometimes you felt afraid to let your younger brother sleep there.

Seeing that the other boy was finally talking Shishido closed his phone and put it in his pocket again. "I have a feeling that he's more than 'not nice'." Frowning he sat down across from the him. "Has he hurt you in any way?"

Biting his lip, Gakuto did a one arm shrug, "Not...exactly...but he yells a lot." He'd come close to it a few times, when Gakuto mouthed off to try to defend his brother, or when he was just stone cold drunk. There'd been a few times when he'd been struck, but he didn't tell Shishido that.

"Yah." He must yell a lot to have Gakuto so freaked out. "Doesn't your mom do anything about it. Or your sister?" Shishido had only seen the older Mukahi sibling a few times and it had just been in passing. She was significantly older than her brothers and so wouldn't really spend a lot time with them.

Shaking his head, Gakuto wore an ironic smile, "Mom's never around." Not that she'd be much help if she was around, she was either so out of it that she tried to cook and ended up burning things, or was so tired that she crashed on the couch, "And...my sister moved out." it use to be the three of them trying to deal with this problem, but now she'd left, and Gakuto was left in charge....and it wasn't easy.

"Moved out... just like that?" He stared in shock. He couldn't believe that his sister would just move out knowing what kind of home life she was leaving her two younger brothers in. With a father that seemed to scare the living daylights out of the boys and with a mom that wasn't around.

"She had her escape....so she took it. I told her that I would handle things." And he had. He'd kept Haru out of the way as much as possible and he'd made sure most of his father's hate was directed at him. As long as Gakuto was the disappointment-son, then he would leave Haru alone. And that plan had worked out just fine.

"Yah but still." He looked at the ground uncomfortably, his long bangs falling in his eyes. "Why didn't you go to anyone sooner. You're still just in middle school. Why do you feel like you have to handle this on your own? You could have come to us sooner." He was starting to feel a little helpless. What does someone do when they find out one of their best friend's home life sucked.

"Because I....." Gakuto was at a loss of words for a few moments, before he found them again, though he knew that Shishido probably wouldn't like answer, "I don't want to have to leave." if anyone found out....authorities would be called, and....he and Haru would be separated. He didn't want to leave his brother, and he didn't want to have to leave Hyoutei, they were more of a family to him than anything, however strange that sounded.

"Why wouldn't you want to leave?" Shishido looked over in surprise and confusion. "I'm mean you've pretty much left anyway. You hardly ever go home."

"It's just easier this way alright!" Gakuto stood up suddenly, frustrated and more than a little scared. "I mean....if I'm forced to leave, who knows where I'll end up?" that was the harsh reality of life...and however much he hated this arrangement, better the devil you know, right?

Shishido didn't know what to say to that. He had never had to deal with something like Gakuto was going though and never though he would have to. He had no idea what was easy or what should be done. Staring at Gakuto shoes for a moment he looked up to catch his eyes. Standing up so that he could stare straight at Gakuto instead of looking up at him he started just saying everything that came to mind. "Look... I... I don't know what you should do. But just don't hide this from me... or Jirou. What if something worse happened to you. What if your dad did get violet and..." He trailed off not wanting to continue that thought. "What if something happened. We'd never known. We're your friends and have been for years. That friendship won't go away. We want to help you."

Gakuto nodded, looking away, he knew they only wanted to help, but he was afraid to let them, the last thing he wanted was for them to meet his father and confront him or something. That would be a disaster waiting to happen. His thought spiraling he didn't catch onto a later part of the conversation until now. His head shot up and he looked at Shishido, eyes pleading, "You can't tell Jirou!" he said, thoroughly panicked, it'd already been nerve wracking enough to tell his story once, having to tell the emotional one of the three what's going on sounded horrible.

Eyes widening at the yell he slowly nodded. "Alright." He relented realizing that Gakuto just telling him was a big break through. He didn't want to push the boy any further. "But if things get any worse we're telling him." And the authorities he silently added in his head. Since the next step to the yelling would be actually abuse. "And you can always come tell me anything. I know my mom doesn't mind having you over. And you can bring Haru too."

Nodding again, relieved that Shishido had given in on telling Jirou anything. "You better not tell her either" Gakuto muttered slightly, looking away to where his brother had made himself comfortable on the swings, barely swinging back and forth, without another word to Shishido, Gakuto made his way over to Haru. Haru looked up at his approach and Gakuto gently hugged him before taking his hand once more to lead him away.

Shishido nodded as Gakuto walked away from him over to his brother. Watching the two as they left he frowned then remembered that Gakuto said his dad wasn't going to be home that night. Picking up his bag he walked out of the park and headed home. He wouldn't be able to practice tonight not with so much running through his head. He didn't really know what he was going to do about what he just learned. All he knew was that he would be there for his friend.

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AN: _This is the dramatic Gaku-based story I was talking about in TTS, there are a few points I'd like to make about this, this is a collab fic with my friend Moon, she is an amazing writer and she has been playing the Shishido to my Gakuto and she has been fantastic to work with, if you guys have any comments and/or reviews, I will be sure to pass on any love to her. _

_Also, this is not what will be happening in TTS, it is far too dramatic, but it is an exploration was more for the fun of it. It was a lot of fun...if somewhat overdramatic XD  
_

_The same rule applies, if you actually want me to go on, please please please review, it almost bothers me when no one reviews. Don't get me wrong, favs are nice....but I really like to see what you guys have to say. _

_Mae  
_


	2. Broken Promises

Disclaimer: Yeah Yeah

Broken Promises 

It was a good thing that Gakuto had insisted that Haru goes to a friend's tonight....because their father came home unexpectedly. Barging into his room in the early hours of the morning, their father was livid for reasons that eluded Gakuto completely, all he knew was that there were curse words thrown at him and a beer bottle tossed against the wall behind him...lucky his father had such horrible aim. When his father finally left, Gakuto stood up shakily, and then started to throw things together and climb out the window, down the tree, flipping out his phone to dial Shishido.

Shishido rolled over in bed. It had felt like he had just gone to bed a few hours ago. Cracking one eye open he paused. Wait that wasn't his he rolled over again until his brain caught up with the rest of his senses. That was Gakuto's ringer! Bolting up and falling out of bed he tripped his way over to his dresser where he left his phone the other night. "Hello?"

"Shishido?" He sounded as groggy as Gakuto felt right about now. But he didn't have a lot of choices right now. "Can I....come over?"

"Sure." He figured something big had happened for Gakuto to be calling him at.. he looked over at his alarm clock... one in the morning. "Where are you?" He asked rubbing the last bits of sleep out of his eyes and pushing his bangs out of his face.

"Grabbed some stuff, I'm on my way there." he was passing the school, back to Shishido's house, feeling a little bit on edge since it was the middle of the night and it was very dark. But he could handle it just fine. Feeling his cheek sting, Gakuto raised his hand up to find it slightly wet with a small cut. Gakuto glared at the red finger tip, beer bottle. Could his father be any more of an idiot?

"Are you alright?" Shishido slowly opened his door and crept down the stairs. He was glad that he had the first room on the floor even through it was slightly smaller. It meant that he didn't have to worry about passing anyone else's bedroom. Taking one peak into the kitchen to make sure that their dog was still sleeping he crept over to the front door to wait for Gakuto.

Gakuto nodded, then remembered that his friend couldn't see him, "Y-yeah...dad just came home. I thought he was going to be out for a while....but Haru's at a friend's so everything's cool." Gakuto tried to rub at his cheek to get rid of the cut before he made it to Shishido's. That would just make things worse. He turned the corner to Shishido's house, quickly and quietly.

Opening the front door Shishido looked down the street in the direction that Gakuto would be coming from. Biting his lip his eyes scanned the street for his friend. Gakuto didn't sound like he was hurt but he did sound really unnerved.

Once he had Shishido's house in sight, Gakuto flipped the phone shut and sprinted the rest of the way there, stopping just short of his driveway, He saw Shishido waiting for him and came up, rubbing at his cheek one last time to make sure that wasn't noticeable.

Closing and locking the door behind them Shishido put his finger to his lip and started to tiptoe back up the stairs. Once they got into his room he turned to stare at his friend. "Are you sure you're alright?" He looked worried. It had been a month ago when he had found out about Gakuto's home life. Since then nothing big had happened. Gakuto had spent a few more nights sleeping over but that had been planned. He had never had to call him up this late at night.

Gakuto nodded, he wasn't that hurt....just a little shaken was all, "I'm fine...he just came home in a bad mood." Was all the information Gakuto would ever give Shishido when the other asked. It wasn't necessarily a lie, just not the full truth...it still counted. His hair was full of twigs from climbing down the tree and he was a little pale. More or less, he looked like a disaster.

Shishido looked at him doubtfully as he pulled some extra bedding out of his closet. He lucky that his mom had them keep a spare bed set for their beds in each of their rooms. Turnning around he noticed that Gakuto kept rubbing at his cheek. "What happened there?" He put down the bedding and pulled Gakuto over to his bedside table where the only light they had on was. Narrowing his eyes he could see a small red welt that had definitely not been there after practice that afternoon.

"Tree branch" Gakuto lied easily, the last thing he wanted to tell Shishido was that his father had a fit and that was from a piece of glass from the beer bottle he threw...good thing it was empty because there was no way he was going to try to clean beer off his floor. Harder than it looked, that's for sure.

Frowning but accepting the answer, since the other boy was covered in stray twigs and leaves, Shishido got back up and started laying out the sheets again. "Stupid. You might be an gymnast but you always have the worst luck with trees." He muttered under his breath. He was trying to ignore the reason that drove his friend to showing up so late at night so he chose to focus on smaller things. Still it couldn't be avoided for long. Glancing every once in a while at the other boy he could tell he was shaking slightly. "Was this night worse than the others?"

"N-no." shaking his head and willing himself to stop shaking, Gakuto wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly cold. "It was just late...and I was tired....he surprised me is all." Yeah....no kidding. Having your door thrown open at one in the morning, and not sure what's being screamed at you, would be a little disorienting. Though, one could be thankful for the small things....like, his father's terrible aim....or Shishido leaving his phone on a night.

Stepping away from the bed he made on the floor he reached over to grab one of his spare pillows. Tossing it over to the simple bed he sat down and looked over to where Gakuto was still standing. "So I guess this has happened before. What did you used to do?" Passing over his friends shivering form he focused on the wall behind him. He didn't like just how scared the other boy looked or the fact that he had been dealing with it by himself before now.

Giving a small laugh, Gakuto sat down on the makeshift bed, shrugging lightly, "Well, you guys asked how I was always on time for morning practices, no matter how early, but always late for the evening, right?" Sneaking in the school wasn't that hard, just had to find the right places to get to, the doors that were unlocked, the windows left open. It was easy for any acrobat worth their salt.

"So you'd just wander around town?" He looked over incredulously. "You should have told us."

"Never came up." Gakuto looked away, out the window, don't ask, don't tell was a policy that he lived by. "And I did ask for a place to crash a few times," He said in his own defense.

"Yah but..." Shishido trailed off realizing that arguing this point this late at night was going to get them no where. Except possibly into a shouting match that his parents would definitely hear. "We're gonna have to figure out a reason why you showed up so late for mom in the morning."

"I'll just set my alarm and be out before she wakes up." Gakuto said simply, as if that solved all problems. Of course it didn't in reality, but in his mind it did for that moment.

"Yah that'd work if Taji didn't get up so early." Their family dog was known for being an extremely early riser. Luckily they had trained him not to make a ruckus before the family was up. But Shishido didn't think that would extend to having stranger walk through the house. "He'd defiantly notice you sneaking out. and I don't have a convenient tree out my window.... and I'm not letting you jump out my window so don't ask."

Gakuto frowned, his perfect plan ruined by a dog...he always knew he didn't like them for some reason. He didn't like having no way out. He didn't really have an explanation for why he'd be over here so late....and there was no way he was going to tell the truth. "Well....what's your idea then?" he asked, a little put off by having his idea shot down right away.

"Well... " Shishido floundered racking his brain for an excuse. "Well we can pretend that you've just coming over for some early morning running."

"....as long as there's no actual running involved, I'm good." Gakuto rolled over, completely exhausted, his energy finally running out on him. It was too late, and he was far too tired.

"Lazy." Shishido lay back down in his bed. He sighed then rolled back around. "Are you sure nothing happened with your dad?" He just couldn't get out of his mind how shaken the red-head was when he got to his door.

Already half-asleep, Gakuto was barely able to mumble out something that sounded like, "Lucky he doesn't have good aim" and, "Glass to clean up when I get home." before he buried his face a little farther into the pillow

"Glass!" Shishido's eyes widened as his voice coming out strangled as he tried to keep his volume down. "What glass?" He sat up staring down at the other boy.

Eyes shooting open at the realization at what he just said, Gakuto stayed frozen for a moment, wide awake now. He groaned and tried to bury himself farther in the blankets, hoping that Shishido would just leave him be, though that was probably a useless hope.

"Gakuto. What glass?" Rolling out of bed yet again he shuffled across the small space to where the other was laying. He stared intently down at his friend. "Gakuto. What glass?" He asked again. This time more insistently.

"Nothing!" Gakuto stayed underneath the blankets, knowing that Shishido had come over since he'd heard the other's approach. Of all the stupid things, he had to almost fall asleep while being questioned. What a stupid mistake.

"Gakuto. Tell me. Something did happen." He took the blanket and started to yank it off. "Talk to me!"

Whispering frantically, Gakuto tried to pull them back, "There's nothing to talk about!" Maybe he shouldn't have come over tonight...maybe he should've just gone to the school instead.

"There obviously is." Shishido whispered back. "Gakuto you said you'd talk with me. I can't help you if you keep blocking me out."

"Maybe I don't need your help!" Why could Shishido leave well enough alone? Gakuto was far from use to having someone always on his case about this. He was so use to it being his own problem, no one else's.

"You don't know what you need anymore. You don't have to deal with things alone anymore. Just talk to me." Shishido gritted his teeth in frustration.

"Can't we do this some other time?" He was so tired, and it didn't feel like it was worth it tonight. He knew if he kept this up that he would lose this argument, he was too drained to compete right now.

"Oh yes. So you can continue to avoid the subject." Shishido stood up still staring at his friend's head. "Gakuto you're really worrying me. If you don't tell me what happened I'm going to go tell my parents." He was at his wits end trying to pry information from the doubles player.

Bolting up, his hair sticking up in all directions, Gakuto looked up at Shishido with a combination of shock and anger, "You wouldn't!"

"I will if you don't talk to me." He threatened moving closer to his door. "What happened, Gakuto?"

Knowing he wouldn't be able to beat Shishido to the door, Gakuto blurted out quickly, "He just threw a bottle! It hit a wall!" Why did Shishido always have to corner him like this?

"He threw a what?!?" Shishido strangled out and stared in shock. "You told me all he did was yell?"

"Q-quiet!" Gakuto leapt up, putting a hand to the other's mouth. "He was drunk, okay!" the last thing he needed was Shishido's parents waking up.

Shaking his head to remove the hand he gaped in shock. "Drunk Gakuto?" He whispered frantically. "The hell? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I knew you'd freak!" Gakuto answered back before turning around and heading over to the makeshift bed.

"Of course I'd freak. You're dad got drunk and threw a bottle at a wall. What if you'd..." He trailed off connecting a few clues from that night. "He threw it at you? Didn't he? You didn't get that cut from a stupid tree."

Wincing Gakuto didn't turn back around, geez, why did Shishido have to be so perceptive sometimes. "Lucky it wasn't full, huh?" he asked, laughing awkwardly hoping to ease the tension, but all he did was make it worse.

"Lucky it wasn't... Gakuto! This isn't a joke. What if he did hit you?" Shishido moved his eyes frantically his hands clenching and unclenching. "Gakuto you have to tell someone."

"No." Gakuto said flatly before adding, "No way in hell. I already told you!" Gakuto accused, hopping that'd get him off his back.

"Yah and I agree to let it go as long as it didn't get any worse than yelling. I think having a bottle thrown at your head is slightly worse than being yelled at." He gritted his teeth in frustration. "Gakuto."

"It didn't hit me! I'm fine!" as far as Gakuto was concerned, no harm no foul. He wasn't hurt, a little shaken, but not hurt, so there was no reason to say anything.

"It didn't but it could have. And then what?" Shishido felt like he was going around in circles. He was so close to just getting up and telling his parents. This was really over his head.

"Well it didn't!" Gakuto spun back around, frustrated with the other, "So just let it go."

"But what if it did. Mukahi Gakuto you're my best friend. If you got hurt when I could have done something..."

"I came to you didn't I!" As soon as he said that he clamped his hands over his mouth in surprise. What possessed him to say that?

"Yes. You came here. That's why I'm trying to help." He whispered frantically. "I'm trying to help you come to your senses and tell someone."

"I don't need!...." Gakuto started before he heard the door open behind Shishido and he froze like a deer in headlights, completely caught in the act. Oh no. nononono. Gakuto gave a quick glance at the window, looking for an escape.

Suddenly seeing his shadow thrown across his floor Shishido froze. Eyes widened in shock he slowly turned around. "Mother?"

"Ryou dear what are you..." Shishido mother stood in the doorway staring in shock at the sight of two boys in her son's room when she had only been expecting one. Looking at the room she saw the bed that Shishido had laid out for the red-head. "Gakuto dear. What? When did you get here? It's almost three in the morning. Did something happen?"

"I-I....." Gakuto was still at a loss for what to say, there was no way they could use Shishido's excuse now, it was far too early for that. "I-I just....." He looked away, face flushed red.

"Ryou?" She looked at her son questioningly turning on the main light.

All he could do was stand and stare. He knew he had been threatening to tell his parents but not like this. He was frozen staring at his mother.

Seeing that she wouldn't be getting any answers from her son she turned toward his shaking friend. Moving toward the other boy he looked him over. "Gakuto darling. When did you get here?" Running her hand along the red welt on his cheek. "What happened?"

"I-I...just...needed..." How could he not have hear her approach? He was almost mad at Shishido, but knew he couldn't blame him for this, though a part of him did. He winced as the welt was touched, "I just...got that at practice." he lied, hoping Shishido wouldn't give him away.

Shishido nodded in agreement brain still speeding along still trying to come up with a reason why Gakuto was in his room at three in the morning when he hadn't been there when he went bed.

His mom's eyes narrowed and look between the two boys again. "This is much to red for it to have been from yesterday afternoon. Both of you are lying. Now one of you tell me what happened."

Opening and closing his mouth a few times, Gakuto couldn't come up with anything either. his eyes flickered to Shishido and back to his Mom. "It was just....an accident." he said, carefully pulling out of her reach.

"An accident? Did something happen at you house? To your parents?" She looked him over fully her sharp eyes checking for any more injury. "Ryou go grab the first aid kit." She called over her shoulder before moving closer to the obviously frightened red-head. "Gakuto dear what happened?"

Hunching his shoulders, Gakuto looked away from the worried brunette, "It wasn't anything big." he protested, his voice shaking slightly as she approached again. Why had this all gone so wrong? What was he going to tell Haru?

"Somehow I doubt that. Or else you wouldn't have shown up in the middle of the night." She slowly moved a little closer, putting a hand on his the light from the hall was blocked again causing the room's occupants to look up. Shishido had come back with the first aid kit and his father was standing right behind him with one hand on his shoulder.

"Dear, did something happen?" Looking into the room he saw his wife and the shaking boy as well as the makeshift bed that Shishido had made. "Gakuto?" He stood there stunned for a moment before moving into the room as well. "What happened?"

Swallowing, Gakuto's eyes grew, if even possible, wider than before, this just kept getting worse and worse, "I...uh...." He shouldn't have come here, he'd be better off if he'd just headed to the school like he'd always had. Suddenly he gave Shishido a glare, if the other hadn't decided to freak out, their plan might have worked, he didn't even know how to begin to explain what happened. He shouldn't have trusted Shishido with his secret, secrets had a way of getting out, and it couldn't be any worse then how it came out right now.

Shishido just stood in his doorway holding the first aid kit while both his parents confronted Gakuto. asking the boy what happened while Gakuto remained tight lipped. He could feel his friend's glare fall on him several times during the questioning. Taking a deep breath he realized that the only thing left to do was to tell the truth. It had been what he wanted from the start and he knew some adults had to know. Especially since his friend's dad had gotten violent enough to throw glass at his son. Who knows how much further he could go.

"It was his dad." He blurted out, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. Breathing deeply he continued. "Gakuto called me at one asking to come over because his dad threw a bottle at him."

His parents looked over shocked at the smaller boy. "Gakuto dear is that true?" His mother gently coxed.

"Ryou!" he cried out, shocked and surprised that his friend would just go right out and tell them. How could he!? He trusted him! He swallowed again, eyes starting to water from lack of sleep, stress, and from watching his world come crashing down around him. He quickly tried to wipe them away, ashamed. He was suppose to be able to take care of this, what was going to happen to Haru? How was he going to take care of him now?

"I'm sorry! But they have to know!" Shishido cried out desperately. "They can help." He could feel tears start leaking out of the corner of his eyes as well. Angrily brushing them away he stood his ground.

"Dear?" Shishido's mother sent a worried and frightened look to her husband who nodded and went of the door.

"I'll call the police."

As soon as he left she moved closer to her son's friend. Taking him into her arms she held him as he shook. "It's alright. It'll be alright." She whispered into his hair.

Shaking his head, his shoulders shook as he started to sob, "No, no, no." he repeated, unable to say anything else for a moment, his mind stuck in the horror that everything was ruined. "You can't call them! Please!" this is exactly what he'd been afraid of to begin with.

"Gakuto we have to." She held him a little tighter stroking his head as he cried into her shoulder. "If you're father is doing something to hurt you or your family." She paused eyes widening a little more. "What happened to the rest of your family?"

Swallowing the tears, Gakuto's voice shook as he explain, "M-mom's never around....my sister moved out, Haru....I took him to a friend's today." and he was lucky he had, even though they both thought their father wasn't coming back for a few days, but something told Gakuto to not let him come home today.

"So it was just you. You brave boy." She continued to hold him as she looked across the room locking eyes with her son.

Shishido was still standing holding the first aid box that his mom had originally sent him out to get. Watching his friend finally break down took a toll on him and he had tears running down his cheeks as well. Every few moments he would raise up a hand to brush them away but they just kept on falling. Still he just stood there watching his mother comfort his best friend. Suddenly a hand on his shoulder caused him took look up.

"I just called the cops. They're on their way over." His father stood there next to him. Shishido could see the worry in his eyes as well. Not only was Gakuto one of his son's best friends but he had also been his student back when the boys were in fourth grade.

Gakuto didn't say anything, just bit his bottom lip, looking away from all of them, ashamed and not to mention more than a little scared. What if his father figured out? He hadn't meant for this to happen, he really hadn't. He would have to call Haru and let him know....let him know they might be separated. Maybe quit the tennis club...the rest of the team would know soon enough. This wasn't something you could keep on the down low. His sister would be either worried or frustrated. He told her he could handle it. He thought he could handle it.

"Everything will be alright." Shishido's mom spoke again brushing his hair back. "Come on. Let's get you downstairs." She shifted so that they were both standing and slowly shuffled their way to the first floor into the living room. Settling them down again on the couch she had her husband fetch a glass of water which he brought back moments later with Taji following close at his heels.

Shishido sat on the other end of the couch not knowing what else he could do to help his friend. Grabbing his dog he slowly stroked her head biting his lips in worry.

Taking the glass, Gakuto took a drink, though it was hard to swallow, not keeping eye contact with any of the Shishido family. Not too long after, the police came to the door, beginning to interrogate. Gakuto knew he couldn't keep the whole story to himself, they would just find out about everything soon enough. And so he told them everything, everything he didn't tell Shishido, everything he'd kept to himself for years. They weren't good stories, they weren't happy, but that had been his life.

Shishido sat in shock at all the things that Gakuto told the police. It was much worse that he thought. Still holding onto Taji he shook on the outside but on the inside he was glad he told his friend's secret.

After the questioning was over the cops got up. "Thank you young man. We'll get back-up over to your house to pick up your father shortly. You can..."

"He will be staying right here." Shishido's mother announced shortly. "As will his brother until everything is sorted out." She had let go of the boy during the questioning but had stayed right next to him the entire time. Through the years that he had been friends with Ryou she had come to consider him another one of her boys. She hated the fact that she had never noticed anything wrong before this night but she was determined to help him in any way from here on.

"I-I'll call him," Gakuto said suddenly standing up and stumbling to the kitchen, and to the sink, splashing cold water on his face to get rid of the red eyes he now had, breathing deep. He leaned over the sink, looking close to becoming sick, but he hadn't eaten, so nothing happened. Once he'd gathered himself up enough, he grabbed the cordless from it's place on the wall and began to dial Haru's number. It was still early, he knew that...but he had to tell him regardless. Haru picked up, sounding groggy, "Hello?"

"Haru...I'm sorry. T-they found out."

While his dad escorted the cops out of the house and Gakuto called his brother Shishido and his mom sat awkwardly on the couch. Looking almost identical from their sharp eyes to their long hair. She looked over to he youngest son and reached out to smooth down his hair. "Ryou are you alright?"

He looked up startled and then quickly nodded. "Yah. Gakuto just needed help but he wouldn't do anything."

"You did the right thing." Suddenly a noise from the direction off the stairs caused them to look up.

"What's everyone doing up?" Hiro, Shishido's older brother, called as he made his way down the stairs rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.

"There was an emergency and we'll be having some guest with us until further notice." His father informed him as he came back from the front door. Taking the seats that the cops vacated they sat around waiting for Gakuto return. All of them wondering what will happen next.

He didn't want to go out....he didn't want to face them, he just kept talking to Haru on the other end of the phone, the younger boy trying to comfort his older brother. Gakuto was ashamed, wasn't he suppose to be the one helping him? Not the other way around. "I'm so sorry Haru....I'm so sorry."

"Gaku-nii." Gakuto's head snapped up at the nickname, one that his younger brother hadn't used in a while, "Are we staying with Shishido's?"

Gakuto nodded, giving a broken laugh, that Haru...ever the smart one, "Y-yeah...just uh...I'll pick you up later today."

"I can go pick him up." Shishido father spoke up from behind him. They all had been wondering what was taking the boy. The silence in the living room was thick so he had gotten up to make sure that he was alright. "I can get him before I go to school, in about an hour, and bring him here." He looked at the clock and realized that it was already almost six. "I'm sure the two of you would want to be together rather than go to class. We're having Ryou stay home to. All you boys have had a hectic night."

Nodding, Gakuto relayed the message over to Haru before hanging it back up, and allowing himself to be led back into the living room. Gakuto didn't have anything to say about the matter, he just nodded to them, and even though he knew it was rude, he ran back up to Shishido's room, the need to get away driving him. Once he got there, he went back to the makeshift bed, tired, exhausted, out of tears to cry.

A/N: I was surprisingly asked to continue, so...I did....it's kinda nice to get reviews asking you to go on.


	3. Unwanted Answers

Disclaimer: We know the drill

**Unwanted Answers**

The clubroom was noisy as everyone got ready for afternoon practice. Boys called out to each other from across the room just causing a general commotion. Still in one corner there was a strange silence as one boy changed into his tennis uniform alone. Every time the door would swing open to let more boys in or as each boy left he would look up to see who it was. Anxiousness crossed his normally sleepy face.

"Where are they." He mumbled to himself as he tied his shoelaces and grabbed his own racket. He left the building and wandered over to the courts where the other pre-regulars were practicing. All the while his eyes were still scanning the crowd still trying to catch sight of his two best friends.

Both of them had been absent from classes on Friday and then missed morning practice this morning. And when he tried calling both of them neither would pick up their phone. He knew they had been in class that day though. But had no opportunity to go search for them since they were in different classrooms and his class had a meeting during lunch so he couldn't escape. So now he was left scanning the 200 members of the tennis team hoping they would have shown up for practice.

Atobe was in an early practice with Oshitari (the only one he even considered to be his rival in the club, ever since last year), they hadn't talked about their curiously absent teammates, though there'd been rumors flying around at rapid speed, some of them far too ridiculous to consider, other's just cruel. Those that besmirched his teammates names, he quickly took down its' source, cunningly and unfeeling. He looked to Oshitari once he saw Jirou wander into practice, absent of both a Shishido and Mukahi. Oshitari just shrugged, sending a ball back.

Oshitari watched Atobe send the ball back towards him as they continued their rally. Out of the corner of his eyes he watched Jirou weave his way through the courts and the masses of practicing boys. His strange alertness and the absence of his two friends were two signs that things were still very much amiss. He had seen Shishido earlier in the day since his classroom was right next to his. But he hadn't had a chance to talk to the long-haired boy to ask him if any of the current rumors were true or of what had happened to his occasional doubles partner.

Shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other, Gakuto wasn't changed for practice, in fact he had his bag thrown over one shoulder and was undecided, standing near the coach's office, but still unsure if he should enter. He had his paper's ready, to resign from the club. It didn't take any idiot to understand that he didn't have enough money to go to Hyoutei anymore, he'd probably have to transfer to a public school. He hoped that dropping out would give his brother enough money to keep going to the prestigious school, but it was a vain hope.

Sighing, he shifted through his bags to find the papers.

Shishido left his classroom and started walking towards Gakuto's. He had been held behind slightly by the teacher giving him the work he missed while he was out. They had agreed that morning to go to practice together to be able to help each other deal with the questions they would get. Still when he reached the other boy's class it was empty. Eyes narrowing he spun around and started searching throughout the school. He wouldn't be at practice, not without him, so where would he be. He turned the corner into the section of the school that held all the offices and caught sight of him lingering outside Kantoku's door digging through his bag. "Gakuto!"

Gakuto jumped, turning towards the voice instinctively, ah, Shishido. Of course, he'd been staying over there for a long time now as things were getting sorted out. Everything was still pretty much a disaster, and he had to testify against his father when the trial came. His sister was called, and she would be flying back to take on the role as their guardian. His mother...well, so far the authorities hadn't found her to be in a good enough position to take care of her sons. Things were still a wreck, but slowly sliding in place, "Hey, Ryou." Gakuto answered back, finally finding the papers

"What are you doing?" He asked slowly walking up to the other, watching as he pulled a paper out of his bag. "I thought you were going to wait for me so we could go down to practice together. You know Jirou's probably losing his mind wondering where we are." Both of them had gotten numerous calls from their other friend wondering where they were and asking if any of the rumors were true. Shishido wanted to answer him but Gakuto convinced him that it would be better to tell him face to face.

"Just taking care of some things." Gakuto shrugged, finally taking the papers out of his bag and reaching out to open the door, his decision made.

"What things?" Shishido looked down at the paper Gakuto held in his hands. Eyes widening he reached out and grabbed it so he could get a better look at it. "Resign? What the hell Gakuto! Why are you resigning from tennis?" He looked up and stared his friend in the eye.

Trying to snatch them back, Gakuto glared at Shishido, "Not from tennis, just the club" He went for it again, but Shishido held them out of reach. "Shishido, give that back!" This is why he'd kept his plans a secret, he knew his friend would overreact.

"No! Why are you resigning? You're pretty much already on the regulars already. And Jirou and I were going to get the team by the end of the year. We were going to take Hyotei to national. If you resign now you'd have to start from the bottom again." That was their dream. To rule the Hyotei tennis scene. And had been since they started playing tennis. He didn't understand why Gakuto would throw that away. He was thankful for the extra few inches of height that he gained over his friend as he reached for the paper. Still he knew he wouldn't be able to keep it from him for long if the red-head started to jump for it.

Hearing the commotion outside, Kantoku came to the door and threw it open, causing both boys to jump and look up. "Aren't you two suppose to be at practice?" He'd noticed their absence, since Atobe had decided to take them on as his future team, had these two been part of the normal end of the 200 members, then he wouldn't have bat an eye.

Shishido turned and bowed to their coach as he startled them. "Yes Kantoku." He said stiffly then grabbed Gakuto and took off down the hall. All the while still clutching the resignation letter that he had snatched from Gakuto.

Stumbling along after, Gakuto gave the back of his friend's head a glare that could kill, "Hand it over, Ryou!" He'd finally gotten the nerve to see Kantoku and he just had his chance ruined by his friend. Of all the stupid, idiotic things...!

"No!" He yelled back as they rounded the corner and burst out the doors right by the tennis courts. "I'm not letting you quit the club." He had let go of Gakuto as they raced through the halls so he was free to sprint ahead. As they got closer to the courts Shishido could feel the eyes of the other club members on him.

"Ryou!" Gakuto knew he wasn't fast enough to catch up with their resident dash-specialist, so he gave up quickly, stomping back to the changing room, frustrated with his friend, ignoring the looks the other team members gave them. If Shishido wanted to play like that, then fine! He would just tell Kantoku later! He threw open his locker, changing, then pulled on his shoes angrily.

Shishido slowed down as he noticed that Gakuto was no longer following him. Confident that at least for now he had prevented Gakuto from making a mistake he started to follow him back towards the changing room when a call came from behind him causing him to stop in his tracks. "Ryou!" Looking behind him he caught sight of Jirou making his way through the crowds towards him. "Ryou are you alright. The rumors aren't true? You didn't get into an accident and die right? And that was Gakuto right? He didn't die either?"

Shishido raised his eyebrow at the question if he was dead or not. "No Jirou we didn't die. It's complicated."

"Complicated? How? What happened?" He looked at Ryou his eyes wide.

"Ore-sama would like to know this as well." Atobe and Oshitari appeared at the sight of their teammates, apparently not hurt, neither were 'dead', so Atobe wanted an explanation, and he wanted it now. If his teammates were not interested in showing up to practice when they were just fine, then Atobe decided they should have one very good excuse.

Shishido stiffened some more at Atobe's voice. Ever since first year when he and Gakuto had challenged the other boy during his takeover of the team he had divested special interest in all of them as likely candidates for his team that he would use to get to nationals. This had formed a sort of tentative friendship between the boys even while Atobe and Oshitari were already in the regular line-up. They had helped get Jirou a place as Hyotei's representative at the Newcomers Tournament at the end of their first year and then this year Oshitari was training with Gakuto on becoming a decent doubles team.

Looking between all his friends Shishido looked back down to the ground. "Alright. I'll explain let's just get to the clubroom." He turned and started to walk towards the changing room when he heard a snap behind him.

"Make that the Regular's club room. There will be less people to bother us. Kabaji, get Mukahi and bring him. I have a feeling that he has part of the explanation."

Tying his shoes thoroughly, he looked up when a shadow fell over him to find Kabaji, the quiet boy was always had Atobe's side so...what was he doing here? "Ah, Kabaji, what're...?" he asked before Kabji snatched at his shoulder forcefully leading him out of the changing room. "H-hey! What're doing?" he said, dragging his heels, before being led into the Regulars' changing room to find some of his teammates waiting. He gave Shishido a confused look, "What's going on?"

Settling down in the regular's club room (which was a lot nicer than the ones the other 192 members of the club used). The four boys waited in silence for Kabaji and Gakuto. Only a few moment's later some scuffling could be heard outside the door as they swung open revealing the two boys.

Shishido sighed at Gakuto question and then looked up. "They want an explanation." He said simply waiting to see if Gakuto would be willing to talk or if he would be the one who would have to do it.

Swallowing uncomfortably, Gakuto looked at the ground, scuffing one foot against the ground, "Do...they need one?"

"Yes," was the automatic answer that came from Atobe, folding his arms and even though he was sitting on a bench like the rest of them, he might as well have been sitting on a throne with the way he carried himself. Gakuto gave him a glare in response. Stupid Atobe, thinking he controls everything.

"Gakuto. What happened?" Jirou looked over to his friend eyes wide. "It must have been something big since you missed school and then wouldn't return any of my calls."

Wincing, Gakuto bit his lip, looking from Jirou to Shishido and back, "There was just...an accident." Gakuto said vaguely, knowing that wouldn't be a good enough explanation by the even more wide-eyed look that Jirou gave him in return.

"I somehow have a feeling it was more than an accident." Oshitari drawled as he pushed his glasses up. "Especially since I went over to your house yesterday since you weren't answering any calls and found no one home."

Feeling more cornered than ever, Gakuto looked back in the direction of the door to find Kabaji creating a very successful roadblock. He gave Shishido a look that clearly said, 'do they HAVE to know?'.

Shishido stared back at Gakuto knowing he didn't want to speak. "If you don't tell them I will." He finally announced crossing his arms after a brief staring contest. "It'd be better coming from you."

Sighing, Gakuto's shoulders dropped, he started with the easier question, "I'm...not living at home right now." He told Oshitari simply for why he wasn't there when the tensai went looking for him.

"Ah. I had figured as much." He stared at his doubles partner through fake lenses. A tiny hint of worry flickered through his eyes. "So where are you living?"

"Until my sister comes home? Shishido's." simple question, simple answer. He could deal with these kind of questions easy enough...as long as the questions stayed uncomplicated.

"And why, pray tell, are you not living with your parents?" Atobe asked staring at the acrobatic player.

"Oh no! Did something happen to your mom and dad?" Jirou sat up his eyes even wider than before. "What about Haru? Did something happen to him?"

"Haru's fine." Gakuto put his hands up at the sudden onslaught of questions. Jirou always did seem to have some sort of attachment to the younger Mukahi, and Haru never protested. "My parents are...fine." in relative terms.

"Gakuto." Shishido glared at his friend. "Stop avoiding the point. They're your friends and deserve to know." Shaking his head he looked pointedly at him. "You know they'll find out eventually. Would you rather they hear it from you or from the rumor mill?"

Gakuto glared back at Shishido, folding his arms, before giving up and saying stiffly, "My...parents lost custody of us..." he said, still avoiding how it happened or the details behind it. He hated this, why did they need to know? Why did anyone need to know?

This news shocked everyone in the room aside from Shishido. Atobe dropped his hand from where he had been holding it up to his face. Oshitari clutched at his glasses which he had been adjusting yet again. And even Kabaji gave a noise of surprise from where he stood by the door.

Jirou leaped up and went stand in front of Gakuto. "What do you mean lost custody? What happened? What are you going to do?"

"My sister's going to come home soon...she's going to become our legal guardian." taking a step back at having Jirou suddenly in his space. Gakuto had been worried when he called her, but all she'd said was that she'd be there, and she apologized profoundly for leaving the two of them alone. She was going to apply for a college nearby and commute.

"That's all very well." Atobe began regaining his composure. "but you still haven't told us what happened to your parents." He had heard some teachers talking about the Mukahi's earlier as he was performing his duties as a student council member. But not being one to listen in on other people passing rumors he had ignored them.

Glaring at Atobe, Gakuto stayed silent for a moment before looking down and rubbing one of his arms, "My dad's...waiting for a trial...I don't know where my mom is." the authorities wouldn't give away that information. All they said is that she was fine.

"A trial for what, Gakuto?" Oshitari asked slowly. Some slight hesitance in his voice as he wasn't sure if he wanted to know.

Looking at Shishido again, he knew he didn't have a choice in the matter and looked down, rubbing the back of his head. "For...Child Abuse." Gakuto muttered, almost inaudibly. It sounded so much worse now that he said it outloud.

Another shocked silence rang through out the room as each person took in what Gakuto announced. Jirou was surprisingly the first to recover as he reached over to grab Gakuto's arm. "You're alright though? You and Haru?"

"We're fine." Gakuto said quietly, frowning as his other hand reached up to rub the red part of his cheek that still had yet to go away. "I didn't let Haru stay at home much anyway." he said as an explanation, since Jirou was so attached to the small boy.

"This has been going on a lot longer than just this past week. Hasn't it?" Atobe stood to take a better look at Gakuto.

Backing up instinctively, Gakuto found himself bumping into Kabaji, he quickly straightened so he wouldn't look as pathetic as he felt. "Kind of." he said 's hand tightened on his arms, his eyes wide, Oshitari hadn't said a word since his last question. Shishido wasn't helping, just standing there watching the drama play out.

Gakuto wished now more than ever that he'd just turned in those stupid papers so he wasn't here.

"Gakuto." Jirou whispered his hand tightening on his friend's arm. Everyone could tell that his mind was racing trying to figure out when it had all started. He had been friends with Gakuto just as long as Shishido had and he had never suspected anything.

"Jirou...I'm fine, everything's fine." He said, though it was far from fine. His world was in a sate of turmoil and everything was changing, he wasn't even sure if he was going to stay in the club. Nothing was the same as it was a week ago, and he hated it.

"Yah everything fine." Shishido finally go up from the bench he was sitting on. "Everything except this." He unfolded the resignation sheet he had grabbed from Gakuto earlier. "Why were you trying to resign from the club? You said it yourself your sister's coming down to take care of you and Haru. Why do you want to leave?"

"Of course I don't want to leave! But she's a college student! Do you think she has the money!" Gakuto glared at him before snatching back the papers, glad to finally have them back. "I'll transfer to a public school, and hopefully Haru can stay where he is!" He knew they probably wouldn't understand completely, but it was something he needed to do.

"Transfer!" Everyone in the room yelled at that proclamation. "Gakuto!" "What do you mean transfer!" "You can't go!" Everyone's words jumbled up together as they shouted all at once.

"Shut up!" He stamped a foot against the ground and everyone went silent. "If you haven't noticed, Hyoutei's a lot of money! Money I don't have!" So he shook the paper in Shishido's face, angry and frustrated "And if you hadn't noticed, I'm homeless and parentless right now! I don't exactly have money to spare."

"Gakuto." Shishido backed away from the paper waving in his face, shock still present on his face. "You don't have to leave. There are scholarships... academic or sports ones that you could get. Or we can ask my dad. He'd know of something. Don't you dare quit yet."

"Then what about Haru, Ryou? What about him?" Gakuto was still infuriated, "If I have any money, it's going to him, okay? And do you think I have the grades to get a scholarship?" His eyes narrowed, "And out of 200 people, what are my chances at getting a sports one?" Stamping his foot one more time, he ended his arguments with, "And I'm not a charity case! You've already done enough!"

Shishido was about to start yelling back at the smaller boy but a slight knocking interrupted him. Everyone's eyes moved toward the door which Kabaji opened to reveal one of the first years standing there with two rackets in his hands. A tall boy who was a little less than half a head shorter than Kabaji himself. His eyes widened as he noticed everyone staring at him.

"I'm sorry but Kabaji-kun left his racket on the court and..."

Gakuto took his chance and shoved past the taller boy, forgetting his stuff behind in the changing room, and running out, missing practice once again as he left, not sure where he was going, just knowing he had to get away.

Everyone in the room fell silent again as the focus of their talk vanished out the door. Looking at each other awkwardly they sat and stood where they were. No one, including the first year at the door, really knew what to do.

"Oh Ryou, Gakuto can't leave!" Jirou suddenly yelled startling everyone. All Shishido could do was stare hopelessly at his blond friend. He wasn't sure what they could do to make Gakuto stay.

Oshitari looked out the door, considered following, but decided against it, with the way Gakuto was acting right now, he'd probably punch someone then talk to them. He turned to Atobe, "He said he didn't want to be a charity case..." knowing that Atobe would catch on.

"So it won't be charity. He'll never know. But I expect him to work twice as hard on the regulars to pay me back. Kabaji." Atobe snapped his fingers with his hand out stretched.

"Usu." The other boy responded from the doorway as he moved over to his older friend, stopping by some bags that had the word 'Atobe' on them and pulling out a cell phone. He passed the phone over to the young heir who took it up immediately and started dialing.

Jirou looked at Shishido, confused for a moment before relaxing into a smile, that Atobe. "Can I come home with you and see him?" He asked almost hesitantly, not seeing his two best friends in days had left him feeling a little bit abandoned.

Shishido looked over at Jirou and nodded. "Sure. Though I don't know how much calmer he'll be. You'll take care of things right?" He looked over to Atobe. Shishido didn't like depending on the flamboyant boy to help his friend. Still he knew that if anyone could help Gakuto with his tuition problem it would be him.

Atobe waved them away with one hand, not seeing the question as one fit enough to respond to, of course he'd take care of of it. He was Atobe Keigo, he had both money and power, of course he'd be able to keep the annoying red-head around.

Shishido nodded then made to walk out the door almost walking into the first year that was still standing there.

"Sorry Shishido-senpai." The boy leaped out of his way still standing there awkwardly.

"Hey how much did you hear?" His eyes narrowed wondering just how long the boy had been standing there before he had knocked.

"Well.. pretty much all of it." The younger boy admitted staring straight at him.

"Great." He muttered darkly to himself. "Well don't tell anyone. The rumor mill's going crazy as it is."

"Yes Shishido-senpai." The boy turned as if to walk away before pausing. "Umm.. could you tell Mukahi-senpai I'm sorry and if there's anything I could do to help..." He trailed off.

"Yah yah." Shishido waved him off mind already preoccupied with how they were going to help Gakuto.

Haru was sitting at the table when he heard the two boys barge in, thinking one was his brother he leapt up and ran out to find the group short one red-head, he blinked up at Shishido and Jirou, "Where's Gaku-nii?"

Shishido looked up at Haru surprised. "Isn't he back already? He stormed out of practice so I figured he'd come straight here." He dropped his bag as well as Gakuto's over in the corner of the room.

Shaking his head, Haru frowned his eyebrows coming together, confused, "He hasn't come home yet...I thought he was still at practice." Where could his brother be? "Why'd he leave practice?" he asked, suddenly latching onto the other part of Shishido's explanation.

"He threw a fit while he was explaining what happened. Did you know he was planning on transferring out of Hyotei?" He asked while pulling out his cell phone to call Gakuto's. Suddenly a ringing noise could be heard from the pile of bags in the corner. "Great." Shishido rolled his eyes and closed his phone.

"He...talked about it." He'd told Haru that he would be able to get a job faster than his younger brother, so it only made sense for him to keep going to Hyotei while Gakuto transferred. Haru hadn't liked the idea, but he'd kept quiet nonetheless. He watched the other boy try to call him, with no result and then spoke up, "He'll probably be at home."

"Home?" Shishido looked at the youngest Mukahi in confusion for a moment before it clicked. "You mean to you're old home?" He watched the other boy for confirmation.

Haru nodded, sad that he was giving his brother away, but knowing it was probably the right thing to do anyway. Gaku-nii always had a horrible habit of hiding from his problems rather than facing them.

Shishido looked over at Jirou who nodded and both of them moved to go back out the door. Almost stepping out he turned to Haru. "Do you want to come to?" He figured they brought his brother along Gakuto would be a little calmer and easier to reason with.

"Okay." Haru came over to the door with them, worried what kind of state his brother would be in...it couldn't be a good once since his brother decided to storm out in the middle of practice. Haru knew his brother too well sometimes.

The three of them darted down the street toward the Mukahi's old house after waiting for Jirou to drop his stuff in the Shishido's living room and waiting for Haru to get his shoes on.

Gakuto was sitting in his old room, on a bed that he'd left a few days before, he glared at the glass in the corner, that stupid bottle that had started all this. He wished it wasn't broken just so he could break it himself, instead he picked up a stray piece, glaring at the light that came through it. Biting his lip he closed his hand over it, then yelped when he cut his hand. Shaking it frantically, he winced. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

As they got closer to the house, with Haru in the lead since the other two only had a vague knowledge on where the Mukahi's house was, Shishido was suddenly struck with a though. "Hey Haru do you have a key to your house?"

Haru shook his head, he didn't have a key. Maybe he had one once, but then it probably got lost in the past few days since he didn't expect to come back here anytime soon. It would take their sister a while to come back.

Shishido sighed as they slowed down until they were in front of a relatively normal looking house. Walking up to the front door Shishido hoped that Gakuto had left it unlocked if he really was there. Trying the knob proved unsuccessful. Looking over at Jirou he shook his head.

Walking back down to the sidewalk they took another look at the house. There was a tree growing up right next to it. Shishido assumed that it was the same tree that Gakuto had used to climb down that fateful night to get out of his house. Walking over to three he

Walking over to the tree he reached up to grab a lower branch. Levering himself up he slowly began to make his assent until he was level with the second floor looking into a bed room. Off in the corner he could see Gakuto sitting on his bed staring at the ground.

Working his way out away from the trunk he precariously perched then reached out and knocked on the window.

Jumping, Gakuto promptly fell off the bed in surprise, his head popped back up to see Shishido at the window. Gakuto was so confused for a moment that he just stared at the brunette in surprise before coming over and opening the window, "What are you doing here!"

"What am I doing here? What are you..." Suddenly a slight cracking could be heard from the branch Shishido was sitting on. Sparing one glance at the tree trunk Shishido made a mad reach for Gakuto's windowsill before the branch gave out on him. "SHIT!" He yelled as he felt himself fall before his hand got a grip on the sill. Swinging his other arm up he grabbed on with both arms. The rest of him dangling against the side of the house.

Snatching at Shishido's arms, Gakuto leaned back to pull the other boy in before he fell, that would just add to more problems than he had already. Once he'd dragged the other inside, they both fell on the floor. Gakuto shot up and glared at his friend, "Idiot! What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking your an idiot." Shishido gasped laying on the floor. "What are you doing here?"

"Just..." Truth be told, he couldn't think of why he was hear. Just when he ran away, this is the first place he'd been lead to, not exactly on purpose, but somehow not by accident either.

Shishido was about to make a smart comeback when some yelling from outside reached his ears.

"Hey Ryou! Are you alright?" Jirou called down from underneath the window with Haru standing next to him. Both of them were standing by the unfortunate branch that had given way under the long haired boy.

Gakuto gave Shishido a withering look, "You brought them too!" of all the stupid things Shishido could've done, this had to be one of the worst. He went to the window and poked his head out, "He's fine!"

"Of course I brought them." Shishido finally stood up after catching his breath. "Jirou's was worried and asked to come over just to see you. And when we got there and you weren't around Haru told us you'd probably be here." He took a look around the strangely empty room.

Gakuto looked back at Shishido, wondering why he went silent so suddenly to find him looking around at his room. If you hadn't known any better, you wouldn't have thought anyone lived here. Everything was left just the way it had been a few days earlier, but Gakuto didn't have anything here that really represented him. Why would he do that when he was barely around? "What?" He asked, confused.

"Nothing... " He shrugged getting slightly uncomfortable. "We should probably let Jirou and Haru in."

Wincing, Gakuto knew that meant having both of his friends see what a disaster his house was, but Shishido had broken the only other way out of the house. "Maybe we should just...go out to them instead." That way the sight was only limited to Shishido, since he'd already known his story, maybe it'd be less of a shock that way.

"Well if you want to talk in plane view of all the neighbors sure?" Shishido raised his eyebrow at the other boy as they slowly made their way through the house. It was strange to say the least. The layout of the house was normal enough. But there was a certain lack of life anywhere. Where there should have been books or other trinkets there were bottles. They passes a side table that wobbled precariously on three legs. It showed no signs that a family of four people, with two active boys, lived there until last week.

Walking past the house, Gakuto kept his head held high, though he felt more ashamed than ever at how his house looked like. This is why he never let Shishido or Jirou come inside, they would've asked questions, that's for sure. The worst part was the living room sitting right next to the front door. That's where all the bottles lay, and where his father spent most of his time. Needless to say, it wasn't a pretty sight. Gakuto didn't say a word as he opened the front door, though he did wince at the cut that he'd gotten, waving the two other boys in.

Shishido stood awkwardly off to the side as Jirou and Haru entered. Jirou cautiously poked his head in but as soon as he caught sight of Gakuto he was in his face. "Are you alright? I'm sorry about upsetting you? I was just so worried. You really won't leave will you?"

Gakuto took a step back, rolling his eyes, "It's not like I'm moving away Jirou. I'm just going to another school is all." He smiled slightly at the other boy, glad at least, that his attention wasn't on the house.

"You might as well be moving away." Jirou said sadly. "We'll never see you during lunch anymore. You won't be at practice. And... and... we might have to face you're new school at tennis. We said we'd take Hyotei to nationals remember."

His smile falling, Gakuto realized exactly what he'd committed himself to, with a jolt. All that time they'd spent dreaming about making it to the nationals, all the practice...it would suddenly be for nothing...clenching his hand, Gakuto gasped as he squeezed the cut, wincing again, he muttered a few swear words under his breath so his brother wouldn't hear.

"You can't leave Gakuto!" Jirou announced grasping his hand. "We'll think of something. Right Ryou?" He looked over to their other best friend who nodded.

"Yah we'll think of something. There has to be a way you can stay."

He knew Jirou meant well, but Gakuto jerked his hand out of the other's grasp out of instinct, "Ow ow ow" he said quickly and quietly, holding his hand and rubbing it carefully. Holding that piece of glass wasn't one of his smarter moves of the day.

Shishido jumped forward as Gakuto pulled his hand away from Jirou. "What's wrong?" He watched as Gakuto clutched his hand to himself occasionally looking down at his palm. Suddenly Shishido's eyes narrowed on a trickle of blood that dripped its way down his wrist. Reaching forward he turned the other boy's hand so that he could see the palm. A gash in the center was slowly bleeding gathering a small pool of blood. "What happened?" Shishido asked for what felt like the millionth time in the past week

Gakuto winced as Shishido inspected his hand, resisting the urge to pull it back like he did for Jirou. "Nothing! Just...not one of my better moments!" He said, frustrated at his own moment of stupidity that caused this injury. But in a small twisted way, he blamed his father, it was because of him that he was homeless in the first place, that there was a broken bottle of glass in his room, that his family was so broken to begin with. His thoughts ended abruptly when Shishido hit a sore spot, "O-ow! L-let go!"

"Well sorry." Shishido growled as he tightened his grip on Gakuto's wrist so he couldn't pull his hand away. "We should stop the bleeding before you lose anymore blood. Do you have a first aid kit?" He asked looking over at Haru.

Nodding, Haru ran off to a deeper part of the house to grab it while Gakuto was struggling to get his hand out of Shishido's hold, the pounding was just getting worse, and he could feel the blood drip down his wrist. Haru came back with a small box and thrust it at Shishido, his eyes wide at the blood on his brother's hand.

"Thanks. Could you get some water and some paper towels or a clean cloth to?" He asked taking the box that was handed to him and opened it up. Looking inside he found what he needed. And started to lay it out. He was lucky that he and his brother were constantly getting cuts and bruises on themselves. This meant he knew exactly what to do here.

Gakuto bit his lip, thinking there must have been some beer or something left on the edges of the bottle for it to sting so badly. "Would you just let go!" Gakuto yelled out, more frustrated than ever, holding it down like that was just making it feel even worse than before, if that was even possible. Haru went off to get what he was told, still unnerved by his brother's hand and pain.

"Will you stay still. Stop being such a baby." Shishido gritted his teeth as Gakuto tried to pull away again. He turned as Haru came back with a cup of water and a roll of paper towels. reaching over with his free hand he took some paper towels and dipped it in the water. The then focused on the struggling boy's hand. Bringing the wet paper towel closer he cleaned off as much of the pool of blood as he could. Then quickly he applied some antiseptic to the cut then stuck a large band aid on it and then wrapped it with some gauze he found in the first aid kit. All the while applying a constant pressure on the cut in order to stop the bleeding.

Once it was done, Gakuto snatched his wrist back from Shishido, determined not to let the other touch it for longer than necessary though he did mutter a quick "Thanks" before motioning his brother over and wrapping his other arm around the shaking boy. Haru was always the more sensitive of the two Mukahi boys, and apparently he didn't like being back in their house anymore than Gakuto himself did, too many ugly memories. He looked back at the other boys, "Let's go back to Shishido's, okay?"

The other two boys looked at each other and nodded. While Shishido had been working on fixing Gakuto's cut Jirou had taken the time to actually look around the house that they were standing in. The large frown on his face was evidence enough of how upset he was at their surroundings. Packing up the first aid kit and leaving it on the coffee table in the middle of the room Shishido got up and the the entire group made their way out the door.

Keeping his eyes ahead and his arm wrapped around his brother, gently squeezing him if he felt the other shake, Haru looked up at him and smiled at his brother. Things had changed, and Haru was convinced it was for the better, no matter how unsettled his brother seemed to be now, things would eventually fall into place.

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	4. With a Little Help

Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own PoT, else there would be a lot more Hyoutei in it :\ **  
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**With a Little Help**

It was the Tuesday night after the confrontation with the rest of the team. Things had calmed down reasonably since then. Though Gakuto was still set on the fact that he had to leave Hyoutei to allow enough money for Haru to continue. No matter what Shishido or any of the others told him, he would just shut them out. Still they managed to convince him not to hand in his resignation form until his sister got there and confirmed their situation. This gave the other some time to plan how they would help their teammate and friend.

The two boys were laying about Shishido's room after a tough afternoon practice. Shishido was reading over some history notes while Gakuto whizzed through some chemistry. (Shishido never understood why the acrobat like that subject so much. It was all just a jumble of letters to him.) They had been complaining on how Atobe was working them even harder than the actual captain was but had fallen silent, each absorbed in their favorite subject. Suddenly Shishido rolled over and reached into his bag. Pulling out several sheets of paper he shifted over so that he could dump them in front of Gakuto.

They'd been stubborn...unreasonably so, Gakuto decided somewhere in between the days he'd told everyone and now. He knew they were pulling something, but Gakuto just couldn't figure out what that something was. Sometimes he'd walk in on them just to have them all go awkwardly silent, and when he'd ask he'd get pathetic excuses in response. He didn't know what was going on, but he knew that he wanted it to stop, but since he didn't have any reasonable evidence of what was happening, he couldn't exactly confront them.

Biting the end of his pencil, he paused at one on the Chemistry questions for a moment, so if you combine the hydrogen with the nitrogen oxide, then it would...his thoughts were interrupted abruptly when he was suddenly looking at a completely different set of papers in his line of vision. His brain taking a moment to get out of that mindset, his pupils dilated and he looked up at Shishido, reasonably confused, while trying to shove the papers out of the way, "What are you doing?"

"Scholarship application." Shishido said simply going back to his textbook. He had gotten the form from Atobe earlier at practice while Oshitari distracted Gakuto with a new doubles formation. All of them had chipped in some questions to make it look legit. They needed a reason for Gakuto to accept the money. A scholarship was the best idea they could come up with.

They had Atobe call up the office and made it official. A scholarship for any top tennis player. Now all they had to do was get Gakuto to apply for it.

Rolling his eyes, Gakuto pushed the papers out of his way, getting back to work on his Chemistry homework, trying to get his brain back to that thinking pattern, it wasn't always the easiest to do. He wasn't going to spend his precious time filling out stupid papers.

"Fill it out" Shishido glared at his friend. "You want to stay at Hyoutei right?"

Ignoring the glare, Gakuto continued with his work, "I told you, I'd take care of it." he said simply, and he was just fine. Not that he was going to tell anyone what he was up to.

"Fill it out." Shishido repeated siting up. "Handing in a resignation form is not 'taking care of it'"

"I can't hand it in because you stole them from me." Gakuto said with a slight shrug, a few days ago he couldn't find those papers and when he asked Shishido where they were, Shishido had just told him he'd get them back eventually. They'd fought about it, but Shishido was unrelenting and eventually Gakuto gave up.

_So if hydrogen was a Nobel gas, then it couldn't really combine with any of the other elements...trick question. _

"Of course I stole it from you." He rolled his eyes. "I not letting you leave the team when you have other options. Now fill out the form so you can turn it in and stop complaining that I won't let you quit."

"After Chemistry." Which was a subtle way of saying, not-at-all. He wasn't going to fill out another one of those stupid applications, he didn't know why his team was so insistent about it in the first place. It was annoying.

"Gakuto. You said you need the money to stay. You won't accept it from any of us but if you can get a scholarship why the hell won't you try." He stood over the other boy angrily. It was almost like he wanted to leave since he didn't seem to be doing anything to stay.

"Ryou, I told you I was taking care of it, so what can't you leave me alone?" Gakuto spared his friend a glance upwards, to have a set of sharp eyes glaring back down at him, and almost flinched at the sight. "Geez, Ryou, don't do that, your face might get stuck that way."

"I'm not going to leave you along because you aren't doing anything. Just fill out the stupid form." He picked it up and waved it in his face still glaring despite the warning.

Growling, Gakuto snatched the stupid form from Shishido, knowing he wouldn't get any peace until he did so. He set down the papers, thoroughly annoyed, and starting writing out. Once he got past the 'name and place' part, blah blah blah. It got to the part he always hated, "Why do you think you deserve this?" Oh gee, I dunno, because Hyoutei's a rich-ass school as it is, maybe give those a chance without the money and...but that never got anyone accepted for stupid scholarships.

"These things are so stupid." Gakuto muttered, his head in his hand.

"It may be stupid but it'll keep you on the team and in school We're taking Hyotei to the nationals remember. We can't do that if you're not iin/i Hyotei." He watched Gakuto slowly fill out the entire form. Making sure that he completed every section.

Rolling his eyes, Gakuto bit back the scalding remark of, 'Of course you could, there's how many members in the Hyotei club?' and just filled out the stupid form. One he was done he thrust them at Shishido, a frown directed at the other boy. Guy just didn't know when to give up. Once the other took the papers, Gakuto pulled his shirt back up on his shoulder (he was borrowing some of Shishido's...who was just enough taller than him to make his shirts slightly too big...but he hadn't really gone home to pick up any of his other stuff yet.). "There, happy?" he asked, not waiting for an answer before going back to his homework.

"Yes." He snatched back the papers and stuck them back in his bag. Settling back on his bed he picked up his textbook again. Now that they had the form Atobe could pass over the money to pay for the rest of Gakuto tuition. Then everything could go back to how they were before (minus Gakuto's parents).

"Baka." Gakuto muttered under his breath, moving onto his math homework...geez teachers liked to pile it on, didn't they? He turned to Shishido, pausing in the middle of his math (he always hated the material...never mind that Chemistry involved math, because they were _not_the same thing). "Alright, what are you guys up to?" He asked suspiciously, he wasn't an idiot, he could tell when something was up.

"Up to? Who said we're up to anything?" Shishido focused on the words in his book.

"I did, because you obviously are." Gakuto stared up at Shishido, noticing how the other avoided his gaze, "I'm not stupid, Ryou."

"Yes, you are, because you're obviously seeing things. None of us are up to anything." He snapped his book closed. Tossing it onto his desk he reached into his bag and pulled out another text book and a worksheet.

Tossing a glare in Shishido's direction, Gakuto decided he was done for the day and slammed his book shut, not bothering to put it back in its' place before standing up and heading out of the room. Sometimes he just felt so trapped here. Bouncing down the stairs he caught his little brother in the kitchen. Haru looked up, smiling slightly, "Hey Gaku-nii."

Ruffling his hair, Gakuto smiled at his little brother, if anything had come from this, he had to say that the two of them had gotten even closer than before, since they'd rarely stayed in the same house before. "I'm gonna head out for a bit, tell the Shishido's?"

Haru looked worried for a moment before nodding.

Shishido watched Gakuto storm out before falling back down on the bed. Normally he would have followed the other boy out but he felt like he was constantly following him around since last week. Deciding he was going to leave him alone for now he turned back to his homework. If he wasn't back when he was done he'd go out looking for him again.

Finishing up his last math problem Shishido stretched. Looking at the clock he realized it was almost 8. Going down stairs he looked around. Spotting Haru on the couch he walked over. "Hey where'd Gakuto go?"

Haru shrugged, looking up at Shishido, "Gaku-nii said he was going out." Haru had long ago finished his homework and was made to look like he was watching TV, but instead he was waiting for his brother to come back, he hadn't yet.

Frowning Shishido looked out the door. "That idiot. I'll go look for him. He's probably around somewhere being stupid." Moving to put on his shoes he left the house trying to figure out where the other boy could have stormed off to.

/-/-/-/

Smiling, Gakuto leapt up for an easy shot down the middle, out of the other player's reach. The other boy cursed and glared at Gakuto when he landed lightly on the ground. He'd gone to the park, racket in hand and had been spotted by some losers right away. Thinking he'd be an easy target, they challenged him, and boy did they regret that now. Grinning, he held his racket behind his back, "I believe that's 6-3." He may have been a doubles specialist, but he could work his way around singles with these idiots.

Shishido wandered down the street. Looking left and right he tried to think of where Gakuto would have gone. Eventually his feet led him to the park closer to his house.

A large commotion by the courts caught his attention as he walked by. Normally he would only come here for some self training because the people that hung around the tennis courts were jokes. Still the shear number of people that were around made him wonder what was up.

Squeezing between some people he made it to the fence to figure out what was so interesting. As soon as the court was in sight he knew what had drawn the crowd. He watched smirking as Gakuto jumped up in the air pulling off a perfect moonsault hitting the ball into the far corner of the court. The over-sized shirt he was wearing not getting in his way at all. Standing around as his friend finished up the last points he moved toward the court entrance. "Hey. You done messing with these losers?"

Startled at a familiar voice, Gakuto looked up to find the brunette standing in the entrance, smirking. Gakuto returned the smirk with one of his own, laughing as he looked back to his 'opponent', who wasn't much of a challenge to begin with. He tossed the tennis ball that he'd ended up with and hit it back to the other boy, simply saying, "I think that's yours" as the ball blew past the other boy.

He turned back to Shishidi shrugging lightly as he held the racket on his shoulder, "Yeah, I guess they've had enough." he looked up and realized that his matches hadn't been so secret after all and was mildly surprised, but didn't let it show as he walked over to Shishido.

Shishido opened the gate for Gakuto when another voice caught is attention. "Hey you brat! You think you're so good because you can pull off a fancy trick." Turning he cocked his eyebrow at the group of guys behind him. "Those guys were idiots. We're not going to let you off so easily." He pointed his racket past Shishido at Gakuto.

Shishido pushed the racket away turning his back on the gang. "Ignore those lame idiots."

"Aw you being rescued by your girlfriend." Another voice came up from behind him. Spinning around, eyes flashing, Shishido glared at all punks.

"Alright who said that! Want to come say it to my face!"

Gakuto laughed, but not at Shishido, at whoever was the poor sap that was about to get his ass kicked across the court and back. They'd both been teased about their hair when they were younger, and just doing it once convinced everyone never to do it again. A few days suspension had been worth it to get those idiots to shut up. Looks like they'd have to teach someone else another lesson.

"What? So you think you can take us?"

Gakuto looked up in the direction of the voice, not really caring who said it, since they were all in on this attempt to make him back down, he smirked, "I know we can." He looked at Shishido and smirked, "Any of you losers play doubles?"

"Oh we'll show you who's the loser" Two of the guys separated themselves from the pack. "We're going to have you two baby girls crying for your mommies. None of your stupid stunts will work on us."

Shishido's glare intensified. He so wanted them to just reach over an punch their lights out. Still he held himself back. He'll humiliate them at tennis first.

"You'll going to regret that." He growled out stepping fully in the court he walked over to where Gakuto put his stuff. "You have your spare racket?"

Nodding, Gakuto went to his bag over on the side and snatched at his other racket, tossing it over to the other boy, spinning his own on his shoulder, pretending to yawn as the other side got ready. He sensed Shishido seething and turned back to him, giving him a thumbs up, "Ready to kick some ass?"

"You know it." Grabbing the racket that was tosses at him he reached up to make sure that his hair was still up. It had been a while since he had played doubles himself but he and Gakuto used to play together when they were in Elementary school. He knew how Gakuto played and that would be enough to take care of these guys.

Walking up to the net he stood his racket up. "Rough or smooth?"

The jerk on the other side of the net smirked down at Shishido, "Smooth," the racket spun and it landed on smooth, winning them the serve. Gakuto smirked at them, "That's good, you're going to need it." ignoring the withering glares that were sent in his direction.

Shishido picked up his racket and rested it on his shoulder. Moving back he met Gakuto at the center of the court. They shared a look and then nodded. He moved back to receive the first serve while Gakuto moved to the net.

Staring across the net he watched the guys get ready to serve. A moment later the familiar sound of a ball hitting a racket resounded through the court starting the game.

Letting it blow right past him, Gakuto stayed at the net, bouncing in place slightly while Shishido slammed it back. Not ready for such a fast return the guy hit it at an awkward angle that gave Gakuto his chance, leaping up, he didn't spin in the air this time, but he backhanded it towards the opposite end from where the back player was standing.

The game went hard and fast. Each shot and smash. Slowly Shishido and Gakuto pulled away. Occasionally giving up a point but getting so much more until the score was 4-2. Moving quickly to reach a shot hit at the corner of the court he hit it back blowing it past the two older guys. "40-Love." He called over. "So who's going to be crying?"

The two guys stared panting at the two shorter boys. "Stupid brats. We've been going easy on you."

"Hey, Gakuto this is getting boring. Let's wrap this up. I thought it'd be a challenge but those guys we faced in 4th grade were harder than this." He called over ignoring the punks.

"I thought with all their talk they'd be more of a challenge," Gakuto shrugged sadly, "Guess we expected to much." Playing around with Shishido, taunting their opponents had always been a fun past time, and these one's were so easily irked. The game continued, Gakuto and Shishido not holding back nearly as much since they were tired of this game. Shishido catching every ball that went to back, Gakuto getting the high lobs and the poaches. Unlike the first part of the game, the second was more like a slaughter, and Gakuto found himself enjoying this more than ever.

Once they were done, both of the other players were panting and sweating, completely beaten, and Gakuto pointed his racket at them, an imitation of what was done to him earlier, "That's what you get for messing with Hyoutei."

"Hyoutei?" The two player looked across the net in shock. "The hell. You didn't say you were from Hyoutei."

"Yah. You never asked. Maybe you should watch out who you're challenging, losers." Shishido scoffed at them. "Anyone else have a problem with us?" He called out to the group still surrounding the court.

The crowd was silent except for a few whispers that where going back and forth between them, 'Hyoutei? Unbelievable'. Since no one else came out, Gakuto turned to grab his bag before coming to stand next to Shishido, "I think we're done here Ryou." He grinned back at the challengers meanly, "They learned their lesson." he went back to the entrance and the crowd moved out of the way a little grudgingly as they walked past.

Scoffing at the group as he walked by. The two of them made their way out of the park. Stepping out into the street they looked at each other and laughed. "Did you see their faces when they found out we were from Hyotei?"

Laughing loudly, Gakuto wiped away a stray tear, "Way too priceless, wish I had a camera!" Hyoutei certainly had the reputation both in and outside the court, known for being the absolute best. After they calmed down for a bit, Gakuto looked at Shishido, "What were you doing there anyway?"

"What do you think I was doing? I was looking for you stupid." He passed over the racket he was still holding for Gakuto to put away. "And you do realize you look like an idiot in that shirt?"

Getting the spare racket in his bag, Gakuto glared at Shishido, "Well forgive me for not going home to get my clothes sooner! I'll do it tomorrow." Stupid shirt was way too big for him, but he hadn't been planning on actually going anywhere when he'd snatched it from Shishido's closet, he pulled up the one shoulder, annoyed.

"Where'd you get that anyway... It doesn't look like anything of mine..." He trailed off staring at the shirt. "Shit, that's Hiro's." He suddenly recognized it as one of his brother's favorite shirts.

"Huh?" Gakuto looked at Shishido confused then back down at the shirt, "Then why was it in your closet?" At least that explained why it was so much bigger, he knew he wasn't the tallest, but Shishido wasn't taller than him by _that _much.

"Mom constantly getting our clothes mixed up." He rolled his eyes. "Damn it. It's a good thing he wasn't home. He'd have flipped if he saw you wearing it. It's his 'lucky' shirt." He raised his fingers to add the quotes on 'lucky'. "We have to get you inside without him seeing and get you a different shirt."

"Well it's not _my _fault!" Gakuto shot back indignantly, his voice cracking on the 'my' part of the sentence. It wasn't that he was afraid of...okay maybe he was. If Shishido was dangerous when he was angry, his brother was even more so. "What're we going to do?"

"Ummm..." He racked his brain as they got closer to his house. "If he's in his room we should be able to get you in without any problem. If not... We may have to get Haru run interference." His brother wouldn't hurt the younger boy.

Gakuto groaned, "Fine, but you're going in first to check!" there was no way he was going in there without first knowing whether he was going to be mauled or not. He looked at the shirt that was much dirtier now that he'd played in it and winced, why hadn't anyone told him?

"Fine." They got to the his front door and he motioned for Gakuto to stand at the side of the house. Opening the door cautiously he looked around.

"Hey squirt." He jumped as he watched Hiro walking down the stairs.

"Hey." He responded nervously. Quickly getting into the house shutting the door behind him. "What's up?

"I'm looking for my Lucky shirt. Have you seen it?"

"Your lucky shirt? Nope." He denied shaking his head. Looking around he caught Haru's eyes who was still sitting on the couch.

Haru was confused for a moment when Shishido walked through the door without Gakuto, didn't he go out looking for him? He looked up at the older boy, confused, "Where'd Gaku-nii?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Gakuto?" His eyes widened slightly. "Oh... he's around..."

Hiro's eyes narrowed suspiciously at his little brother before turning to go to another part of the house. "Whatever. If you find my shirt tell me."

Shishido breathed a small sigh of relief as Hiro walked away.

When Shishido came to open the door, Gakuto looked at him, "Is he gone?' Haru blinked a few times, looking at either of them, confused as to what was going on.

"For now. Hurry up." Shishido motioned for Gakuto to go up the stairs then turned to look at Haru. "If my brother comes back don't let him come upstairs. Stall him anyway you can." With that he followed Gakuto up to his room.

Once he got into Shishido's room he yanked off the shirt and quickly pulled on a different one from the closet, holding the 'lucky' one in his hand for a moment, at a loss of what to do. "uhhh?"

Shishido rushed into his room closing the door. "Great. Give it to me." Grabbing the shirt he looked at it for a second... Poking his head out of the door and listening he could here his brother and Hiro talking a the bottom of the steps. Gulping he slowly crept over to his brother's room. Looking around he moved to his bed and shoved the shirt underneath it. Going toward the door again sprinted out in the hall. Taking a deep breath he moved toward his own room again when his brother came up the stairs.

"What are you doing?" He asked suspiciously.

"Bathroom." Shishido pointed to the door that was across from his brother's room nervously.

"Uh huh." He narrowed his eyes and walked over to his room closing the door behind him.

Shishido gave another sigh of relief as he darted into his room and closed the door again.

"Way too close."

Gakuto breathed for a moment before there was a light knock on the door, and Haru opened it just a crack, "Gaku-nii?" Gakuto pulled his little brother inside and laughed, giving him a noogie lightly before letting him go. "I owe you little bro." Haru wasn't sure what made his brother so happy or what exactly he'd done in the first place, but it was a nice change from the past few days. Looking back at Shishido he gave another slight laugh, this one a little more nervous, "You're brother would've _killed_me."

"Yes he would have." Shishido agreed collapsing on his bed. "Then he would have killed me for good measure." He gave a laugh of his own. The tension finally easing ot of him.

"Guess I should go get some of my own clothes tomorrow." Gakuto said with a light shrug before turning to his brother, "Do you want to come with or should I just grab whatever?" Haru paused for a long enough moment for Gakuto to know the answer. "No worries, I'll be back with some stuff then."

Shishido moved his head to watch the brothers. They had been having so much fun kicking the butt in the park and then avoiding his brother he had almost forgotten why the brothers were staying at his house to begin with. Rolling over he stared at his ceiling.

"I guess I'll just grab our packing bags while I'm there," Gakuto said thinking out loud before realizing that Shishido was being awfully quiet. When he dared a glance in his direction, he saw the other staring up at the ceiling, oh...guess he shouldn't have talked about this with him around. Opps. "I...can't carry two bags by myself... with my tennis back and backpack..." he said as a slight apology and for Shishido to step in if he wanted to.

Shishido rolled back around sitting up. "I can come with you if you need help." He shrugged. "We can go after practice tomorrow. And I'm sure if we can wake Jirou up he'd help too."

Nodding, Gakuto turned back to Haru, sitting him down carefully, "So! Tell me what trouble you've been up to!" Haru smiled big and started chatting away. Ever since they'd come here, Gakuto had made sure to give his brother the attention he couldn't get before. He'd never realized how little time they spent together, it was almost shocking.

Shishido watched the brothers talk, occasionally putting in his two cents in. They chatted until his mom called up for them to get ready for bed. They all complied grumbling a bit.

/-/-/-/

Gakuto was more happy than he'd been in days, months even. Ever since he'd been basically kicked out of his house. After class he'd quickly grabbed his stuff and ran out the door to find someone but instead ran into Shishido. Skipping back a few steps, he smiled apologetically before blurting out, "Where's Ohtori?" not thinking about how strange the request seemed to be in the first place.

"Ohtori who?" Shishido looked at him in confusion. As far as he knew there wasn't anyone named Ohtori in any of his classes, or on the tennis team.

"C'mon! You know, tall," he put his hand way far above his own head to demonstrate. "Grayish hair, first year." At seeing no signs of recognition from the other boy, Gakuto finally sighed and said, "Never mind, I'll keep looking." turning around to search once more.

"Hey don't forget Atobe wanted us to do some kind of special practice later" Shishido called after his friends back. Shaking his head in confusion he continued walking toward the club room. Tall, gray-haired, first year. Since when did Gakuto know any of the first years?

Waving his hand dismissively at the reminder, Gakuto worked his way through the crowds, trying to find the younger boy. Finally he spotted a bit of gray hair that stood far above the rest of the crowd, quickly pushing his way through the rest of people (ignoring angry protests) Gakuto barreled the taller boy from the side, probably scaring the poor boy. "Ohtori!"

Choutarou jumped and looked at whoever had barreled into him. "Wha..? Oh Mukahi-senpai." He stepped back in surprise. "Was there something you needed?"

"I got it!" Gakuto said happily, "I got the scholarship!" Boy did he ever owe Ohtori, if the other boy hadn't found this piece of information buried in the school's files, who knows what Gakuto would be doing now. He grinned happily up at the younger boy, pushing some hair carefully out of his face, before saying much quieter, "I owe you."

Choutarous's eyes lit up in surprise at the news. "Congratulations. It was nothing. I'm glad I could help." When he had accidentally overheard the older boy tell his friends about his situation he was overcome with guilt over having eaves dropped and sadness over his situation. He didn't know what he would have done in his place.

The following day while looking through some older files, trying to find a sheet of music, with one of his teachers he came across an old scholarship application. He asked the teacher about it and he said that it was still available but no one had applied for it in a few years, since it was a dual interest one, for both creative arts and sports (and most students stuck to one or the other... or didn't need a scholarship) and only available to second or third year students. Instantly he thought of Mukahi-senpai since he knew he had seen him in the creative arts wing several times to talk with some of the dancing instructors. Dancing was a creative art. So with that in mind he managed to work out a chance to talk with the upperclassman the day after to pass off the form.

"Nothing! Geez, Ohtori! I owe you...I don't know what I owe you, but whenever you need help, you come to me first!" Gripping the other's forearm, his face went completely serious for a moment before breaking into another wide grin. He'd been a little hesitant of accepting help from the younger boy to begin with, but he'd never seen Ohtori do anything in his own self interest, the boy just simply didn't have a mean bone in his body, Gakuto realized. What a strange combination for a Hyoutei boy...oh well. It was a nice change to find someone genially interested in helping others.

"Oh!" Bouncing on the end of his heels, Gakuto remembered that practice would start soon, "Tennis." He ran off in the direction of the exit but not before turning back and waving to the other boy.

Ohtori waved back. A small smile of amusement on his face. Well it was good to see his senpai really happy again. Shaking his head he readjusted his grip on his violin and followed the red-head at a slower pace. The first years had some basic drills that Kantoku wanted them to do while the upperclassmen were doing special training.

/-/-/-/

Quickly changing, Gakuto was tying his shoes carefully, with all the jumping around he did, those seemed to come apart more often than not if he didn't take special care. And...it wasn't really a good thing when one of them came apart, it basically created a domino affect of sorts. Snatching his racket from the bag, Gakuto got ready to go.

Jirou yawned as he wandered out to the court. He had been ready a while ago but doze off waiting for Shishido or Gakuto to show up. Not seeing either of his friends around he decided they would already be on the court. Wandering past the club room he stopped short when he recognized Gakuto just exiting it. "Oh hey! Gakuto!" He waved his friend over yawning again.

"Jirou!" Gakuto came over excitedly, his friend had been one of the people that had been the most heart broken when Gakuto told hte team that he would probably have to transfer, so it was only fair that he was the first to find out, "Jirou, I don't have to leave."

Jirou immediately perked up at the news. "Congratulations!" He jumped over to hug the red-head. He had been one of the masterminds behind the new scholarship for Gakuto to get the money to stay. But he hadn't realized that Atobe would have been able to get it finalized through the school by now. He had thought to would have taken a few more days... But then again it was Atobe. He wasn't about to lose one of his promising regulars or friend to something that he could help with. Jirou saw the worry in their future captain's eyes when he heard about Gakuto's situation, that betrayed more than a simple wish not to lose another player.

Stiffening for a moment at the hug, Gakuto relaxed and returned it before pulling back, grinning. Of all the scholarships to get, he'd never expected this one (not to mention he hadn't even realized it existed in the first place), that Ohtori...he'd have to find someway to repay him, but he'd think about that later. He gestured to his racket, smiling, "Up for a couple rounds?" he asked. It'd been a little while since the two of them played, seeing as Atobe had them play singles and doubles respectively.

"Sure!" Jirou lept up eager for a match. "You're moonsault's gotten ever better hasn't it?" He bounced over to the courts. "Come on. Let's play!"

"I wouldn't say that, since your volleys will give me more trouble than they're worth!" Gakuto shot back still smiling widely before grabbing one of the stray balls to start their impromptu game.

Oshitari looked up when Jirou burst out onto the courts. He adjusted his glasses wondering what had gotten the volleyer so excited. Then he saw Gakuto come up grinning behind him. It had been a while since he had seen the spark in his eyes that meant he was exciting about tennis. What ever had happened to get those two so hyped up he was glad to see it made Gakuto happy again.

Flipping around in the air, Gakuto smashed the ball past Jirou, trying avoid his tricky way of playing. It was far from easy, the other wasn't the second best singles player for nothing, and while Gakuto had his own specialties, most of them lay in the doubles area however. Once he landed on the ground, he noticed Oshitari watching with his usual smirk playing on his features, Gakuto waved to his doubles partner, "Yo, what's up Yuushi?"

He nodding his head in recognition of the wave. "Not much for me. But you seem especially jumpy today. Any particular reason?"

"Ah, ya know, just found enough money to stay on the team is all." Gakuto played it off as not a big deal but then just grinned at Oshitari, teasingly. Since they both knew he was thrilled, no reason to fake it.

"Really?" He tilted his head in thought. "Well then I suppose congratulations are in order." Atobe worked quicker than he thought.

Gakuto thought about it carefully for a moment, thought it was more of an act than anything else, "Ice cream." he decided with finality, "We'll go get ice cream." Unlike most of Hyoutei, it didn't take too much to please him, and this was one of those things.

"Sure." He smiled at his partner. "But don't you have a match to play now?" He nodded at Jirou who was bouncing up and down waiting for Gakuto to serve again. "Hurry up. Atobe has some special training for us."

Rolling his eyes, Gakuto answered, "Doesn't he always?" before picking up the ball and tossing it up and smashing it back, beginning another rally.

Shishido wandered onto the court watching his two best friends rally. Still trying to figure out who exactly Gakuto was talking about earlier when they ran into each other. He wandered over to stand next to Oshitari. "Do you know anyone by the name Ohtori?"

Oshitari glanced at Shishido, not at all put off by the sudden question, he was unnerving like that. He thought about it carefully, pushing up his glasses before giving the other a shrug, there club was _huge_ you couldn't exactly know everyone. "Can't say that I do. Why's that?"

"Gakuto was looking for someone with that name earlier." He shrugged it off. "So what's gotten them so hyped up?" He nodded toward the two people on the courts.

"Gakuto said he's found enough money to stay." Oshitari chuckled at the site of the two of the shortest members of the team playing to their heart's content. Once you got them going, it was hard to get them to stop. "Didn't know Atobe could work that fast." he said with light amusement in his voice.

"Really?" He looked up in surprise. "Well it is Atobe." He smirked. That guy was crazy the best of days. But he was amazing at tennis and that was really counted. Suddenly a snapping sound from behind them caught his attention and caused silence to fall among the other members lingering around them.

Stopping in mid-swing, Gakuto let the ball fly past him when he heard a familiar snap behind them (however strange that sounded...but they'd been snapped at enough times to recognize who it was), turning around to find Atobe with his usual smirk in place and Kabaji standing on his right side. This must be that...'Special Practice' that Shishido and Oshitari had been talking about.

"Well it seems you are all eager to get to training." Atobe spoke grandly to everyone. "Very well. Kabaji." He gave another snap and Kabaji moved to setup the materials needed for the newest training method he devised.

/-/-/-/

Sitting on the ground, Gakuto rested on his hands, his chin pushed back and hair a disaster, breathing deeply. That Atobe, always finding new ways of tormenting them, they weren't even regulars yet and already he decided that he had to drive them into the ground. But despite the fact that he was pretty much a pool of sweat and it felt like he wouldn't breathe normally for days, Gakuto was happy. He was glad that he didn't have to give this up now, because for a while there it had been a pretty frightening solution.

Shishido collapsed on the ground next to Gakuto. "Damn him." He panted. "He's going to kill us." Catching his breath he turned toward the other boy. "So I heard you got the money to stay. I told you signing up for that scholarship was a good idea."

Snickering slightly, Gakuto didn't return the gaze, "Oh that wasn't the one you gave me to fill out." he said with a light laugh, "But you were right anyway." He conceded to a point. He'd gotten the money now, and that was all that mattered.

"Wha...? What do you mean not the one I gave you." Suddenly Jirou blew past them grabbing Gakuto's hand and pulling him up and along.

"Come on Atobe said he had an important announcement for us in the regular's club room." He laughed as he yanked the poor boy stumbling behind him.

"Hey wait! Jirou!" Struggling to stand up again his brain raced trying to think of what Gakuto had been talking about. "If it wasn't their scholarship that Gakuto was talking about that got him the money then what was it?"

Trying to get his feet underneath him again (which was hard with an excited blond pulling him forward...well this is what you get for waking up Jirou, he supposed.), Gakuto turned back to Shishido, confused as to why the other had seemed confused instead of happy that he'd gotten the money. Well that didn't make any sense. Shrugging it off, the red-head finally got to the point where he stopped falling behind when they made it to the regulars room. Atobe sat there, smirking, and looking like he was on top of the world. But then again, he was always like that.

As his chosen few gathered Atobe grinned. "Well congratulations on you all for surviving the new training. I knew I had chosen well. Now for my announcement. I know we have all been eager to know about and how to help Mukahi's situation. Well I have just been informed from the office that he has just been accepted for the tennis scholarship that he recently applied for." He announced with a flourish. "The money will be able to take take care of for the rest of his time here at Hyotei Middle School and beyond should he plan on continuing here."

Tilting his head to the side in confusion, Gakuto wondered for a moment if this is what his friends had been planning from the beginning...now it all made sense. When the rest of the team looked at him to see his reaction, Gakuto just laughed, "Uh...thanks but...I already got one, Atobe. And...it wasn't the tennis one." This meeting was turning out far more amusing (and somewhat confusing) than he'd first thought. He almost laughed again at the completely dumbstruck look Atobe was giving him. This had to be a moment documented in his mind from now on.

"Huh? It's not the tennis one?" Jirou looked at him in surprise. "Then what is it for?"

"Yah. Does this have to do with that Ohtori you were looking for earlier?" Shishido asked looking confused.

"Ohtori?" Atobe looked over at Shishido. "Kabaji isn't Ohtori the name of the boy that in your class that spends time with you."

"Usu." Was the response that he got.

Shrugging lightly, Gakuto just said, "It was part of the creative arts program. Ohtori found it and gave the forms to me." He looked over at Shishido, rolling his eyes and smirking, "I told you I was taking care of it."

"Bu..." Shishido looked at him in confusion for a minute. "Idiot. You never said that you applied for another scholarship already."

"You never asked." Gakuto replied, sticking his tongue out slightly, before becoming a bit more serious, "But...thanks anyway." a smile playing on his features.

"I guess real congratulations are in order. Not only for getting a scholarship but for doing it on your own as well." Oshitari spoke up with a smirk on his face. "I believe you asked for ice cream earlier?"

Perking up, Gakuto nodded smirking back at Oshitari before thinking of something else, "Yeah! But...can I bring someone along?" he asked.

"I suppose it would only be fair." He agreed assuming that the other boy was going to ask to bring Shishido and Akutagawa with him.

"Great! Kabaji!" He turned to the taller boy, "Do you know where I could find Ohtori right about now?" He asked, bouncing on the end of his toes, nervous habit of his, not being able to stay in one place for too long.

"Usu" The other boy nodded and walked out the door with the other boy following. This left everyone else there in slight shock and a little confusion over what they just found out.

Gakuto peaked his head back around the door for a moment "C'mon! You guys too! But I'm not paying!" he said before disappearing once more to catch up with the taller boy.

Everyone left in the clubroom looked at each other for a second. "Che lame." Shishido finally announced sticking his hands in his pocket and walking out the door.

"Hey wait for me! I want ice cream too!" Jirou yelled sprinting after the long-haired boy.

Oshitari looked over at Atobe was still standing there. "Well it was a good try anyway. At least he's staying. Are you coming?" He asked as he walked out the door after everyone else.

"Yes." Atobe said walking at a brisk pace to catch up with the Oshitari. "After all this could be a positive team bonding experience."

A/N: This has actually pretty much been finished since before I put up the first chapter...the reason I hadn't put it up was because of...personal issues. Either way I knew there was at least one or two people waiting for the rest of this. There is just one more chapter after this one and then it is finished~

Read and Review, or just enjoy. Whatever strikes your fancy, m'dears


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